The future of Atlanta starts with a dream, the Atlanta Dream to be exact.
Women’s basketball is on the rise, with names such as Caitlin Clark, A’ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart, and Napheesa Collier. All of these women are legends on the rise who deserve to be seen, heard, and paid like it. But championship-winning MVPs are paid like interns compared to their NBA counterparts.
This disrespect isn’t just national, it’s local too. The Atlanta Dream is one of the two women’s teams in Atlanta (the other being the Atlanta Vibe). However, they continue to fight for fair pay, coverage, and even basic recognition in their hometown. The question isn’t whether women’s basketball is growing; the real question is why Atlanta hasn’t caught up.
Despite being the first professional women’s team in Atlanta, the Dream get played and paid like they had just arrived. While overall WNBA coverage is growing, the Dream continues to struggle to receive media attention, even in their own city. Because of their lack of coverage, people even in the Dream’s hometown, have never heard of them. Former Dream player, Angel McCoughtry, talks briefly on the lack of awareness, stating, “When I first came to the Dream, nobody knew the team existed, so we had to fight to get some recognition in the city. Um, we had to let people know that there was a women’s team. And you know, each year we just got more and more popular, but we still didn’t have the fans the Hawks had, and we went to the finals three or four times.”
In a survey completed by Atlanta locals, 27% of people didn’t know who the Atlanta Dream is. Fewer viewers also equals lower salaries, because in order to make money fan engagement is crucial. Whether that’s subscribing to the league pass so you can watch your favorite players from anywhere, or simply buying a ticket and attending the game. Although you have the option to subscribe to the League Pass, blackout restrictions often make games in your area unavailable. Therefore, most viewers aren’t aware of the WNBA teams in their area, and how can you support a team you don’t know about?
According to The Athletic, the Atlanta Dream were initially founded in 2008, being named after the iconic “I Have A Dream” speech given by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Over the years, the Dream has won three Eastern Conference championships (2010, 2011, 2013) with the help of key players like; 2x Olympic gold medalists Angel McCoughtry and former WNBA champion Erika de Souza. They currently play at the Gateway Arena in College Park. Notable players from their 2025 roster include: 2022 rookie of the year Rhyne Howard (University of Kentucky), gold medalists Allisha Gray (University of South Carolina), and NCAA 2024 champion Te-Hina PaoPao (University of South Carolina).
The pay gap between the WNBA and the NBA is larger than you might think. I surveyed Atlanta locals to gain a better understanding of the role the Atlanta Dream plays in their community. In that survey, 77% of people stated that they believe the Atlanta Dream players are not fairly paid for their work. The NBA’s salary cap is $140.5 million, while the WNBA’s salary cap is $1.1 million — the league, not the team.
This means the lowest-paid NBA player still made 5 times higher than the highest WNBA player this season.
For example, Caitlin Clark (Rookie of the Year, 2024) made an estimated $77,000, while Victor Wembanyama (Rookie of the Year, 2023-2024) made an estimated $13 million. Despite achieving the same recognition, there is an over $10 million difference in their paychecks. There’s over $30 million difference between the 2024 WNBA finals MVP and the 23-24 NBA finals MVP. If you compare the Atlanta Hawks and the Atlanta Dream, the lowest-paid player on the Hawks makes $275,421 more than the highest-paid player on the Dream. Even first-round picks get shorted. Former Dream player Angel McCoughtry mentioned that after being drafted as the first pick in the 2009 Draft, fresh off a great season at Louisville, her initial salary was $44,000. Comparing that to a McDonald’s worker.
It’s common for WNBA players to play overseas to support themselves financially. According to Sportico, following the 2023 season, 50% of WNBA players participated in overseas leagues during the winter.
Dream players such as Naz Hillmon (Australia), Jordin Canada (Australia), Angel McCoughtry (Turkey), and Tiffany Hayes (Turkey) also found work playing overseas during the offseason. Because of this, championship winner Napheesa Collier and New York Liberty’s Breanna Stewart created a 3v3 league named UnRivaled set to play from January to March. UnRivaled debuted this past January, and their average salary is still about $118,000 more than the average WNBA salary.
Although the Dream is the first women’s pro team in Atlanta, they’re media coverage is lower than their salaries. In a survey conducted, 72% of people said they know who the Dream are, but 67% of people had never been to a game. 60% said they rarely hear about the Dream in the news. The majority, 91% of people, said they don’t think the Dream gets the same amount of respect as the Hawks. This point is supported by outlets such as Fox5 and WSB-TV. Now, while 11Alive gave the Dream a column, Fox5 doesn’t give the Dream a column at all, and yet Georgia football has one. WSB-TV doesn’t specifically highlight any team, but the Dream are rarely (if ever) mentioned or covered. Media outlets also aren’t always professional when it comes to the women in the W, often feeling like their doing the ladies a service by covering them (almost like they shouldn’t) Dream star Angel McCoughtry talks on this a little mentioning an experience she had with a reporter saying, “I remember one article, one guy I said, I didn’t like what he said about me, and I told him, why did you say that about me? He’s like, you should be glad that we’re just covering you guys. Something like that. Like, it was horrible.”
Another pattern that has been evident in the WNBA recently is that as the women’s teams have been growing, the men’s teams have been significantly more supportive, especially in the media. This is something that’s occurred in Indiana and Washington commonly as the league expands. Atlanta doesn’t have this, though. As a teen in sports in Atlanta, the only time I ever heard the Hawks and the Dream in the same sentence was when they were being compared. I asked Angel if she thought collaboration with other sports teams would be a good way to promote and boost the Dream, to which she responded, “Yes. It helps. Like the more we’re together and just growing, the better off we are.”
It’s the same pattern on social media; it’ll take you a second to find Dream coverage on the WNBA’s own Instagram. They’re barely featured on platforms like Bleacher Report, Just Women’s Sports, and ESPNW, although these are platforms designed to promote women’s sports news. You’re more likely to find coverage on Allisha Gray, considering she’s won numerous awards this season, including Eastern Conference Player of the Month for May. Even in injury, Caitlin Clark still gets more media attention than Rhyne Howard and Britney Griner.
If you want to support and watch the Dream, most games are shown on ION, ESPN, and NBATV. Some games are also available on CBS, CBSSN, Prime Video (through the League Pass), and can be shown locally through Peachtree TV and Peachtree Sports Network. Any national platform won’t display the 12 remaining games. And although WNBA fans can watch games using the league pass, Dream fans in Atlanta cannot use it to watch the games due to blackout restrictions, making it harder for fans who have the subscription to support their home team.
People are willing and ready to support, and the numbers show that. 61% of people said they are supportive of the Dream, but supporting and engaging are two different things. While 72% of people surveyed know who the Atlanta Dream are, 67% of them have never attended a game. This gap needs to be filled with visibility and access. People can’t support what they don’t know, and if 60% of people said they rarely hear about the Dream and 33% have never heard of them, it’s clear the media plays a role in this.
Despite finishing last in the league in average attendance with an average of 4,743 per game, the number has risen this season to 6,709; however, it remains one of the lower numbers in the league. Atlanta can raise that number in no time if it wants, considering when superstar Caitlin Clark came to town on June 24, 2024, not only did the game get moved to State Farm Arena for more seating, it also broke the Dream’s highest attendance record, leaving it at 17,575. Then again, later that year, on August 26, the record was broken vs Caitlin Clark on the Indiana Fever (another game moved to State Farm Arena,) making the highest Atlanta Dream attendance record 17,608. That’s not a coincidence – merely an example of what the future of Atlanta could look like.
If you take a second and break it all down – the media ignoring the team, the lack of coverage (even from outlets meant to uplift women’s sports), and salaries that barely reflect the work these athletes put in – it’s not about being “overlooked” , it’s about being disrespected. There’s a word for this: sexism, plain and simple. It’s not about the team “not being good”, or lack of talent, or wins. It’s about the fact that women’s sports are seen as less competitive and serious than men’s sports, things that were built into the patriarchy of the sports world. It’s deeper than marketing, talent, and awareness. And when 91% of people are saying they see the Dream doesn’t get as much respect as the Hawks, or when teens are asked why this might be, and they respond because of sexism, it goes from an opinion to a pattern. When I asked McCoughtry if she could relate any of her experiences to the sexism within sports, she said, “Yes. There’s so much sexism with sports, so much with women. And I think that that’s obviously been the main thing for so long.” Saying that’s also a common reason why the Dream is overlooked.
The Dream have played in this city for decades, winning Eastern Conference Championships, making playoff runs, and staying true to their city every chance they get. So why can’t Atlanta do the same for them? When I asked Angel McCoughtry what it would take to move forward – to finally put the sexism behind us and focus on the future, she said: “just not comparing women to men, and saying things like, Oh, they can’t dunk. Just enjoy the art of basketball, support the city, and how hard women work. Also continuing to advocate for them to be able to make more money and help their families.” That’s the blueprint, it’s not complicated. All it takes is the people. If people listen, if people care, if people choose to engage with women’s sports, they’ll see – the futures are already here; we just have to stop choosing to ignore them.
