CNN’s Bash blames wage gap for Griner arrest, claims player wouldn't have been in Russia if WNBA paid like NBA

CNN anchor Dana Bash wondered whether the gender wage gap between the NBA and WNBA prompted Brittney Griner to be in the wrong place at the wrong time just so she could earn a fraction of the money that male professional basketball players make. 

CNN anchor and chief political correspondent Dana Bash claimed that the WNBA’s low pay, as compared to NBA players’ salaries, could have been a factor in the sentencing of WNBA player Brittney Griner to nine years in a Russian prison.

Bash insisted that if it weren’t for the wage gap, Griner wouldn’t have had to play in Russia to generate revenue for the league. Thus, she would have never been arrested for having cannabis oil vape cartridges at a Moscow airport. 

After pleading guilty to drug possession and drug smuggling of cannabis oil last month, Phoenix Mercury player Brittney Griner was handed a nine-year prison sentence by a Russian court on Thursday. Griner was fined the equivalent of $16,400 in Russian Rubles in addition to the sentence.

During a Thursday CNN segment discussing the breaking news, anchor Dana Bash found a way to hammer the wealth gap between male and female basketball players in relation to Griner’s imprisonment. 

US basketball player Brittney Griner stands in a defendants' cage before a court hearing during her trial on charges of drug smuggling, in Khimki, outside Moscow on August 2, 2022. - Griner was detained at Moscow's Sheremetyevo airport in February 2022 just days before Moscow launched its offensive in Ukraine. She was charged with drug smuggling for possessing vape cartridges with cannabis oil. Speaking at the trial on July 27, Griner said she still did not know how the cartridges ended up in her bag. (Photo by EVGENIA NOVOZHENINA / POOL / AFP)