With time ticking down to the CBA deadline on Oct. 31, here are the biggest questions (and some answers) around the negotiating table.
As the Las Vegas Aces celebrated their third championship in four years, attention turned toward what will be a pivotal and contentious offseason in the WNBA. The collective bargaining agreement (CBA) negotiations are ongoing, and took on a new tenor during the postseason.
Players utilized their opt-out the day after the 2024 WNBA Finals and submitted a proposal and follow-up to league representatives earlier this year.
Players began their public campaign at All-Star weekend in Indianapolis in mid-July by wearing “Pay Us What You Owe Us” T-shirts during warm-ups. Right before that, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, the league’s CBA committee and WNBA Players Association (WNBPA) met in person for the first time in this process and didn’t find much common ground. Already in the works, the players involved in the All-Star Game opted to wear the shirts and broadcast their stance.
Since then, both sides have made their feelings known, with the players taking several public stances during the regular season and playoffs.
After the Minnesota Lynx were eliminated from the semifinals on Sept. 28, Napheesa Collier used her exit interview a few days later to publicly call out Engelbert, saying, “We have the best players in the world…but right now we have the worst leadership in the world.” Players across the league came out in support of Collier’s statement, and later that week, Engelbert faced the media as part of her usual WNBA Finals address.
Engelbert said she and the league need to “do better” to address the players’ concerns, but drew more criticism for denying that she made a comment about Caitlin Clark that Collier alleged she made. The commissioner said she planned to meet with Collier to discuss some of these issues, but the next day, Collier reportedly canceled that meeting, citing a “lack of accountability.”
With time ticking down to the CBA deadline on Oct. 31, here are the biggest questions (and some answers) around the negotiating table.
What do players want?
The players are tunnel-visioned on a salary and revenue-sharing system. Sparks veteran guard Kelsey Plum, WNBPA first vice president, described it as wanting a piece of the entire pie, not just a piece of part of the pie. That includes pieces of media rights fees, team ticket sales and jersey revenue.
Since people are tuning in to see the players, many said, it’s only fair that the players take part in the financial windfalls happening league-wide in the future. They want a revenue-sharing model that allows their salaries to grow as the league grows.
“I want people to understand that basically we get a very tiny percentage of all the money that's made through the WNBA, which obviously is through our entertainment, the entertainment we provide,” veteran Lynx forward Napheesa Collier said after winning All-Star MVP. “And so we want a fair and reasonable percentage of that.”
The league maximum salary is around $250,000. It went up a fixed amount annually, as stipulated in the CBA, and is a large increase from the $119,000 max of the last CBA. The salary cap also increases, but at a lower rate than player salaries.
The league proposed a minimum of $300,000, CBA committee co-chair Satou Sabally said during the Finals. The league did not address that number specifically in a request for comment from Yahoo Sports.
What’s the issue in negotiations?
Players have said the league is set on a fixed revenue sharing proposal. The league and its owners also see the growth, but know the efforts and money it took to help get it there. There is revenue sharing in the current CBA, though it's based on revenue metrics that can then spur payouts.
“We were at a very different place in 2020 than we are in 2025,” Engelbert said at her All-Star address in July. “So, I think you'll see the revenue sharing be a much more lucrative one as we go forward because we're in a better place, quite frankly.”
Neither side has revealed details of revenue-sharing proposals. While WNBA team owners are not allowed to speak publicly on the talks, it stands to reason they also want a piece of the pie they haven’t always enjoyed.
“That's why I'm so optimistic that we're going to do something transformational here because we want the same things as the players want,” Engelbert said. “We want to significantly increase their salary and benefits while balancing with our owners, their ability to have a path to profitability as well as continued investment. You see tens of millions of dollars being invested in practice facilities and other player experience by teams. We want to strike the right balance between those two so that can continue.”
Is there common ground?
At her Finals address, Engelbert reiterated that the sides have similar end goals, but are going about it differently.
“I want to reiterate that we want much of the same things that the players want,” Engelbert said. “We want to significantly, and I mean significantly, increase their salary and benefits, while also supporting the long-term growth and viability of the WNBA.”
The sides appear to be far apart on how they go about revenue sharing, even if everyone believes the players should receive a larger salary and better team benefits moving forward.
“Based on what we saw and based on what we’re proposing, it’s two fundamentally different systems,” WNBA Players Association president Nneka Ogwumike said after the All-Star Game.
“And one that leans more toward a fixed percentage is what the league is responding to us with and we want to have a better share where our salaries grow with the business and not just a fixed percentage over time.”
Players expressed frustration at a lack of movement the day after the meeting. Breanna Stewart, one of the union’s vice presidents, said progress was made on only two bullet points related to family planning and retirement benefits. No further progress has been reported since July.
What else is on the table?
The players Yahoo Sports spoke to over the course of the season all unequivocally declared revenue sharing and salaries as the top priority in negotiations. But there are other issues that will likely be discussed as talks continue.
Coaches and players have been more vocal this season about the lack of consistency in officiating and aspects of the league’s referee model that put it at a disadvantage (no external review center, low pay for referees). Engelbert said during her Finals address that the league's competition committee will take a look at officiating once the season is over, as usual, but also announced a new task force to address concerns about the state of the game.
"Referees and their work serve the game," Engelbert said. "I think it's pretty clear we're misaligned on what our stakeholders want ... [and] there are no greater stakeholders than our players."
The schedule will also play into negotiations. For the 2025 season, the league expanded to the max 44 games granted under the old CBA, but in the same May-to-October footprint. It will be more complicated in Olympic and World Cup years. Engelbert said they would still try to stay in roughly the same calendar footprint. The league will expand to 18 teams by 2030, but players have long been vocal in their desires for roster expansion over team expansion to open up spots.
The charter flights the league installed a year ago will need to be codified in the new CBA after the old one did not allow for them. Currently, the league is paying the bill. And players are seeking proper investment by team owners, including practice facilities, health and wellness care and top-of-the-line personnel.
“This new CBA that’s coming in by us is going to weed out the owners that don’t want to invest, or invest just enough to get by and that’s not good enough anymore,” Liberty veteran Natasha Cloud said before winning the All-Star skills competition.
“If you’re not going to be here to invest, then it’s OK. We’ll see you at the door,” she said. “Because someone, somewhere is going to want to invest into this league that continues to boom, that continues to show its worth, its value, and what you (owners) could get out of it as well.”
Team owners will likely want to double down on the prioritization clause that keeps players stateside for marketing, health and on-time arrivals to their WNBA teams.
“It’s very clear that the league wants to push away all other leagues,” Storm forward Gabby Williams said, specifically citing Unrivaled and Athletes Unlimited.
Is the WNBA losing money?
Quite possibly, yes. Also, maybe not.
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in 2018 that the WNBA loses roughly $10 million a year. Two days before the New York Liberty won their first WNBA championship last fall and three days ahead of the players’ opt-out announcement, the New York Post reported the league was set to lose $40 million that season.
However, there is no hard data publicly available to prove this claim, and accounting schemes can impact the macro figures of any business. The financials around the league have always been unclear since it is under the umbrella of the NBA, with several teams owned by NBA team owners. The $75 million capital raise in 2022 muddles it further as it involved some NBA/WNBA team owners.
The “losing money” line isn’t specific to the WNBA. When NBA players negotiated their CBA in 2011, the league said it lost $300 million per season and that 22 of its 30 teams were losing money. Silver said in July 2015 that “a significant number of teams are continuing to lose money.” And in 2017, ESPN.com obtained confidential records illustrating losses by 14 teams. According to CNBC’s NBA team valuations released in February, two teams (the Clippers and Bucks) were in the red.
How does the media rights deal fit in?
Engelbert made clear for most of her tenure that a new media rights deal would be a vehicle to “transform the league,” such as implementing charter flights and better salaries, the way rising media rights deals for men's leagues do the same. She often described it as a “broken valuation model.”
Beginning next year, the WNBA will receive $200 million per season as part of the 11-year, $2.2 billion deal the NBA signed with Disney, Amazon and NBC Universal. Some, including legend Cheryl Miller, feel the price is too low, while others believe the WNBA should have been able to negotiate separately from the NBA to receive its full worth in the marketplace.
The league also separately extended its deal with ION, and announced an 11-year deal with USA Network, which will air about 50 games annually, including some postseason games. This is the money the players are staking their claim to in CBA negotiations.
What league is a fair comparison?
For obvious reasons, the WNBA is most commonly compared to the NBA. But it's apples to oranges — the NBA was born 77 years ago; the WNBA turns 30 next year.
MLS, founded in 1993 and launched a year before the WNBA, is a better comparison. Even its fight for charter flights is similar. It signed a 10-year, $2.5 billion agreement with Apple in November 2022 after averaging 281,000 viewers in 2021. In its final season on ESPN in 2022, the league averaged 343,000 viewers. MLS said this week it is averaging 120,000 unique viewers on its Apple TV+ Season Pass, though it’s unclear what exactly that number charts.
The WNBA averaged 372,000 viewers in 2021. In 2024, it averaged 1.19 million on ESPN platforms, 1.1 million on CBS Sports, 670,000 on ION and 678,000 on NBA TV. This season, ESPN games averaged 1.3 million viewers.
How are teams valued?
Surging valuations show the WNBA is big business. The average WNBA team is valued at $269 million, a 180% increase that’s the largest year-over-year uptick ever recorded among major professional sports leagues, according to Sportico’s second annual WNBA valuation report released last month. The average team valuation was $96 million a year ago.
The Golden State Valkyries lead the pack at $500 million, edging the reigning champion New York Liberty ($420 million, 222% gain). The Valkyries are set to make more than $70 million in revenue, double what any other team made in 2024, per Sportico. The Fever grew 273% to a $335 million valuation with an estimated $34 million in revenue last season (300% increase).
WNBA teams are no longer viewed as incorporated add-ons to the NBA business when it comes to standalone sales of franchises, Sportico’s Kurt Badenhausen said on the Sports Media with Richard Deitsch podcast. They are now a vital part of the accounting, unlike recent sales of the Lynx within the Timberwolves sale, and the Mercury within the Suns.
“Both of those transactions, the WNBA team was inconsequential,” Badenhausen said. “It wasn’t even part of the conversations in terms of what the price was going to be paid. It was, what are you paying for the NBA team? That conversation would not happen in 2025. That conversation would come up.”
What are the players 'owed?'
While the situation is similar to the U.S. women’s national soccer team’s fight for equal pay, it’s also drastically different. The USWNT was fighting for the same amount of pay as the U.S. men’s national soccer team received for their work from the same employer, the U.S. Soccer Federation.
The WNBA players also aren’t fighting for back pay. They’re looking toward the money the league is set to bring in — or has already pocketed in some cases — and want what they feel is their rightful piece of the revenue. The three expansion teams announced in June all paid a reported $250 million expansion fee, and key metrics around the league are all up.
Engelbert said national TV viewership in its totality is up 23% year over year. The average attendance (10,986) broke the 1998 record of 10,868, per Across the Timeline.
Who is in the room bargaining?
The WNBPA executive board attends on behalf of the players, who voted for their representatives. It consists of Ogwumike (president), Plum (first vice president), Elizabeth Williams (secretary), Brianna Turner (treasurer), Alysha Clark (VP), Collier (VP) and Stewart (VP). Each team can have up to two player representatives who relay information to their teams and collect feedback to report up to the execs. More than 40 players, some of whom are not in leadership, attended the mid-season meeting in Indianapolis.
“A lot of times negotiations start heating up right when playoffs start,” Ogwumike said before the All-Star Game. “So I don’t anticipate us having another meeting with that many players, and I wish we would have capitalized more in the conversation that we had with the league [on Thursday].”
The union has a CBA committee led by Ogwumike and Sabally as co-chairs. The league has its own CBA committee that includes members of the Board of Governors. Legal counsel also attends.
Are there conflicts of interest?
Yes, though this has been a reality of the league dating back to its inception.
The majority of players held second jobs on clubs overseas until recently, and even now, many play in domestic leagues Unrivaled and Athletes Unlimited during the long WNBA offseason. Those are extra considerations for players as they think of what they want included or excluded from the CBA. The prioritization clause that owners insisted upon in the last CBA negotiations is an example. There may be concerns with pushing the schedule out deeper into November, as it would cut into overseas leagues.
Collier and Stewart are in a unique position. The duo launched Unrivaled, a 3x3 league featuring much of the WNBA’s top talent, this past offseason. The company is based in Miami, announced 14 future players through NIL and operated an activation at All-Star that drew long lines throughout the weekend. Collier drafted her WNBA All-Star team on ESPN while wearing an Unrivaled T-shirt and mentioned her Owls teammates within her selection choices. Players who participated in the first season have equity in the league.
Their commitments to national teams are also a consideration since major international tournaments overlap with the WNBA season. Engelbert said earlier in the season that players born outside the United States who play for their country make up more than 20% of the league.
Is a work stoppage coming?
Ogwumike said the union “hasn’t discussed about work stoppages,” but has addressed it.
“We wouldn’t be doing our job if we didn’t let players know, hey, the league is in a different place,” Ogwumike said. “We’re in a different place. Just be prepared for anything that can happen.”
Multiple players, including Angel Reese and DiJonai Carrington in March, indicated ahead of CBA talks that the players are ready to sit out games if the league doesn’t meet their major priorities. Players also noted the potential for work stoppages in the days after Collier spoke openly about Engelbert’s leadership.
Alyssa Thomas said at All-Star that when they broached the topic of a work stoppage in the past, it was tough because of the impact on rookies. There were also vet-minimum players to consider. When a salary is in the $50,000 range, it’s tough to lose that.
The situation is different now. Top players come in making money off NIL deals that, in some cases, rival the sponsorship deals of the league’s biggest names. Players are making more money from sponsorships, brands and salaries than ever before, making it more feasible financially to sit out.
How would a work stoppage impact long-term?
Historically, there's been ill will toward players who strike for more money and benefits, as plenty of Americans view them as having too much already. But the WNBA is in a different state.
The salaries are drastically lower than the multi-millions male professionals earn. Already, it’s clear they have a strong contingent on their side. “Pay them” chants broke out at All-Star, and many loud voices lent their opinion to the players’ side of the argument. Fans held “Pay them” signs at regular-season and postseason games, and eagerly booed Engelbert during the Aces’ trophy ceremony.
A work stoppage could stagnate the “hyper-growth” Engelbert has described. Each side will need to consider how tender the situation is and how a work stoppage could halt the progress of the league's growth.
Is there a deadline?
Yes and no. The deadline right now is Oct. 31, but it’s more of a soft target.
“I have confidence we can get something done by October,” Engelbert said at her All-Star address. “But I'm not going to put an exact date on it because if we're in a good place, [if] we're going back and forth [and] there's a few remaining issues, we can extend dates here and there.”
Players told Yahoo Sports throughout the postseason they would turn their attention to the CBA in full force when their seasons were over. When players opted out the last time, the sides extended the deadline in 2019 and announced an agreement on Jan. 14, 2020.
Any extension this time around is less than ideal, given how much needs to be completed in the offseason. The Toronto Tempo and Portland Fire are scheduled to begin play next year and will need an expansion draft, which was held in December last year for the Valkyries.
There is also a monster free agency period awaiting. Everyone except those on rookie contracts is an unrestricted free agent, a move players made to maximize their earnings and benefits under a new CBA. There’s also the collegiate draft, typically scheduled eight days after the NCAA national championship game.
“Would we like to get it done? Yes,” Engelbert said. “Does it have to be done exactly on that date? We've got some room to continue negotiations if we're close at that point.”
No matter when it gets done, players have made their stances clear.
“We have a lot of leverage this time around,” Thomas said. “You know, back when we did our last CBA, [we were] still trying to find our footing in the league. I think now we have a lot of power. As you can see, the league is growing. There's a lot of attention on this right now, and I think we just got to tap into that.”
Category: General Sports
