The sudden rise in viewership across the WNBA this season has been well-documented. But still, the league has to go a long way to be on the same level as other professional sports leagues. Especially when it comes to player pay, which was highlighted by an injury suffered by Seattle Storm rookie Nika Mühl.
Mühl is best known for her collegiate playing days at UConn where she shared the backcourt with Paige Bueckers.
Part of this is because she saw very little time on the court for the Seattle Storm in her rookie season after being selected with the No. 14 pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft.
Only seeing action in 16 games this season, Mühl attempted to stay fresh this offseason by playing overseas in Turkey, which is extremely common amongst WNBA players considering their pay is nowhere near the same as other professional sports leagues.
In her first season, Mühl took in a total of $69,267. Nothing to sneeze at obviously for the average person, but not quite what a professional athlete in a sport that is on the rise should be getting.
Unfortunately, Mühl’s overseas basketball venture may have actually done more harm than good regarding her WNBA standing. On Thursday, she went down with a knee injury that viewers at home knew was very serious as soon as it happened.
On Friday, Özkan Arseven, the CEO of the Turkish team Mühl plays for, reported on X that Mühl had torn her ACL.
“Today, Nika’s injury has ruined all our morale,” Arseven’s post reads after translation. “We have learned from the MRI and check-ups that there is a rupture in her anterior cruciate ligaments. Unfortunately, our player has closed the season. I wish her a speedy recovery.”
Many of Mühl’s peers took to social media to offer her words of encouragement. But as far as anything from her own team, there was very little to speak of.
In fact, the Storm’s social team was more focused on Muhl’s fashion sense after reports of her torn ACL emerged.
There was a brief post from the Storm shortly after Mühl’s injury wishing her to “get well soon” . But there was never even an acknowledgment of the report from the Storm that Mühl had suffered a torn ACL.
Any other time, fans likely would have loved to see some of Mühl’s pregame outfits on social media. But given the circumstances, WNBA fans thought that it was clearly very poor timing given the fact that the former UConn star is set to be sidelined for quite some time.
Much like Caitlin Clark, Mühl hasn’t had a break from playing basketball since before the start of the 2023-24 college basketball season at UConn, which Clark has spoken about recently .
However, thanks to her endorsements, Caitlin Clark had the luxury of not having to play overseas this offseason, which Mühl and many other WNBA athletes simply aren’t able to do.
Whether this played into Mühl’s injury is obviously up for interpretation. But obviously, this will only further the argument for WNBA players to be compensated more comparably to other sports leagues.
[ Seattle Storm on X ]
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