Kia ora, Talofa, Ma’lelei, Bula and Welcome to Season 09 Episode 17 of Breakfast Bites, by TEIVOVOdigital.com – a wrap of Pasifika people’s sports news, on a sunny and bright Saturday morning 20 April 2024.
 
Coming to you with tons of hanisi from the 180th meridian, in the middle of the blue continent.
                                                                  
In rugby union: Team Fijiana and Atelaite “Buna the Bullet” burned the Western Force in their semifinal in Suva yesterday to a packed out HFC Stadium with the flying fullback scoring three wonderful tries in their 25-14 win to make a third final three years in a row.
 
Later, the Fijian Drua had the measure of the Hurricanes for most of their game, but too much individualism in front of their home fans saw them fail to nail key try-scoring opportunities for the Hurricanes 38-15 win.
 
In football: Despite a Mohamad Salah penalty for a 1-0 win last night, Liverpool crashed out of the Europa League after losing 1-3 on aggregate to Italian Club Atalanta, after they stunned Anfield with a 3-0 win last week, in Liverpool’s first home defeat in all competitions for 14 months.

In SportsBiz: Caitlin Clark is expected to transform the WNBA, so it was jarring when it was revealed she’d receive US$76,000 in the first year of her rookie deal.

Her four-year contract is worth US$338,000 under the WNBA collective bargaining agreement.   
In contrast, the next number one NBA pick will receive US$10.5Million in their first year, 137 times the WNBA wage. 
 
People are pissed. There’s lots of conversation about fairness and pay gaps, even the US President Joe Biden tweeted about it. 
 
The NBA annual revenue is US$9.6Billion, while the WNBA is US$199M.
 
The NBA teams play an 82-game home and away season, while the WNBA schedule is 40 fixtures.
 
Many will argue this is about economics as much as gender.
 
They might rightfully point to the fact the NBA has had fifty extra years to become a multi-billion-dollar business.
 
It’s going to take time. 
 
Though when the NBA was the same age as the WNBA is right now, in 1974, the number one pick was Bill Walton, who signed a five-year deal reported to be worth US$2M.
 
In rugby league: The Eels shot out to an 8-0 lead 26 minutes into the game with Shaun Lane and Will Penisini scoring after a scrappy start from both sides in hot and humid conditions at TIO Stadium, Darwin.
 
Then the Dolphins embarrassed Brad Arthur in a 44-16 carve-up with a nine-try onslaught to leave Parramatta fans completely shell-shocked.
 
In combat sports: Ryan Garcia has unloaded at a heckler in a stunning, foul-mouthed rant while also agreeing to a US$500,000 bet with Devin Haney ahead of their WBC Junior Middleweight title fight at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York on Sunday.
 
After Garcia dropped his fair share of expletives, Haney told reporters later: “There’s something wrong with him. I don’t know what’s going on, but that shit is not normal. We all know that.”
And that’s a wrap!
 
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Mahalo and Ka kite; for TEIVOVOdigital.com, I’m Culden Kamea tanking you all too mass for all your love and support.
 
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