🤩 Layup Lines: We're so back

Happy Tuesday and welcome back to Layup Lines, your quick recap of what’s going on in the WNBA. Hope you had a great weekend!

• The All-Star game was an All-Star game, but it was still very cool to see big ratings and excitement around the festivities.

This 476 word newsletter should take about 2 minutes to read.

Today’s games

• The second half of the season starts with a bang — get ready for five games tonight, all of them on ESPN. We’ve got Los Angeles @ Washington (7:30pm ET), Indiana @ New York (8pm), Chicago @ Minnesota (8pm), Atlanta @ Las Vegas (10pm) and Dallas @ Seattle (10pm). We’re going to take three of them:

  • The Sparks and Mystics have four tired All-Stars who might’ve preferred another few days off.

    • Bet: Los Angeles / Washington under 167.5 total points scored, $50 to win $44.

  • She’s not playing tonight, but the Liberty signing Emma Meesseman is a huge deal. Yes, the 6-foot-4 power forward is 32 and last played in the WNBA in 2022, but New York adding a big who can shoot from deep fixes a lot of problems.

    • For tonight, Jonquel Jones is back and Caitlin Clark is not. Shouldn’t be much more complicated than that.

      • Bet: New York -11, $50 to win $47.

  • The Dream and Aces were struggling on defense before the break and both teams should feast inside.

    • Bet: Las Vegas / Atlanta over 161.5, $50 to win $45.

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Take of the day

• Anyone arguing that WNBA players shouldn’t make more money because “the league doesn’t make a profit” is not tethered to reality. It’s a moronic argument for 3 reasons:

  • The worst owners in every sports league claim to lose money. The W’s finances are also complicated by being tied to the NBA and are complete opaque. It’s generally not a smart idea to blindly trust rich owners on their word.

  • The Aces sold for $2M in 2021. The three new expansion teams just paid $250 MILLION EACH to join the league. That kind of explosive four-year growth in any other field comes with higher salaries and valuations.

  • W players currently make less than 10% of league revenue. Every team has a salary cap of $1.5M. Paying the players more would not involve some miraculous capital infusion.

Graphic to go

• Great idea from @justwsports — there’s so much young talent flying into the league now that this kind of Rookies vs. Sophomores game would be perfect for the Friday of All-Star weekend.

  • Rookie contracts are also small enough that one major sponsor could easily commit to a cash prize worth playing for.

Layup Lines is written 100% by human beings with visual assistance from AI tools. We very much appreciate you reading and will see you back here tomorrow.

— Everett Cook, Founder & Editor