The highest-paid WNBA player made a US$242,000 wage, while the league minimum wage within the NBA is over a million dollars in 2023. Keith Houchen can still remember the scene as if it were yesterday. The mist was rising from the River Thames as Houchen jogged around the grounds of the Compleat Angler Hotel near Marlow, alone with his thoughts. A matter of hours later, he would obtain FA Cup immortality on the grandest stage of all.

With a hundred days to go, there are problems that still exist forward of the largest sporting occasion of the summer season. Another …