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Tasmanian Alanna Smith has had the best season of her career in the world\u2019s best women\u2019s basketball league. As she did, the WNBA began to burn.<\/p>\n
In a stellar season for the Minnesota Lynx, Smith became one of the first Australians to sign for the off-season three-on-league league Unrivaled, and last month was named WNBA\u2019s co-defensive player of the year \u2013 the first Australian given the honour since Lauren Jackson in 2007.<\/p>\n
But as the most-watched WNBA season in history drew to a close, tensions between players and the league were at boiling point. It centred on one key issue \u2013 the players want to be paid more, and they want it in writing by October 31, when their new collective bargaining agreement is due to start.<\/p>\n
If there\u2019s no agreement, the players will be locked out by their teams and not paid.<\/p>\n
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Alanna Smith celebrates a three-point basket against the Phoenix Mercury during the playoff series.Credit: AP<\/p>\n
Smith, like most players in the WNBA, is acutely aware of the negotiations.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s no secret that women\u2019s sports and especially women\u2019s basketball is on the rise, and so we\u2019re going to be making money, and we\u2019re going to be making money for leagues for many years to come,\u201d she said on Tuesday during a visit back to Australia.<\/p>\n
WNBA players share no more than 10 per cent of the league\u2019s revenue. The\u00a0New York Times compared this share<\/a> to the NBA in which players are mandated to receive between 49 per cent and 51 per cent of revenue. The result is that the top men\u2019s players earn about 200 times more than the best in the WNBA.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s going on is that the [revenue] share number is absurdly low. And there are reasons as to why it\u2019s low, like there wasn\u2019t much cashflow coming in \u2026 but times are changing, and I think with that we need to keep up with the times,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n WNBA star Caitlin Clark at league\u2019s All Star game.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re at a point where we\u2019re starting to see the fruits of our labour, and we deserve a slice of the pie.\u201d<\/p>\n Since joining the Minnesota Lynx last year, Smith has been close to the inferno. Her teammate and captain Napheesa Collier has become the league\u2019s most outspoken player.<\/p>\n Collier made headlines this month after she read a statement during a post-game press conference that criticised the WNBA\u2019s leadership and revealed that its commissioner, Cathy Engelbert, said players should be \u201con their knees thanking their lucky stars for the media rights deal that I got them\u201d.<\/p>\n Collier is not the only one frustrated. More than 40 players walked out of an Indianapolis hotel in July when negotiations over the CBA turned sour. Later that month, every player at the WNBA All-Star weekend wore t-shirts that read \u201cpay us what you owe us\u201d.<\/p>\n When the Las Vegas Aces claimed the championship on October 11, Engelbert was booed by fans during the trophy ceremony.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not fun to read that type of stuff. As a player, you want your commissioner to be a players\u2019 commissioner,\u201d Smith said. \u201cAnd so those types of comments [from Engelbert] kind of make you question that.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of talk\u2019s going around right now about relationship repair between the commissioner and players \u2026 and I think that is absolutely necessary, especially now with how the CBA negotiations are going. We all need to be on the same page.\u201d<\/p>\n Alanna Smith receives her trophy for being co-defensive player of the year.Credit: Getty Images<\/p>\n Off the back of her celebrated year, Smith has been named as one of the first Australians to play in a historic breakaway league known as Unrivaled, alongside Opals teammate Ezi Magbegor. Co-founded by Collier in 2023, the three-on-three league held during the WNBA off-season offers some players more than four times their WNBA salaries.<\/p>\n Loading<\/p>\n \u201cUnrivaled is doing a really good job of jumping on that momentum of women\u2019s sports, while also allowing players to join in on the ride,\u201d Smith said. \u201cMore brands are interested in WNBA players now, more organisations want to partner with WNBA players.<\/p>\n \u201cBefore, it was like pulling teeth trying to get brand deals and trying to talk to companies about working with female basketball players, and now we\u2019re being sought after, and I think Unrivaled is a really good vehicle for players to have access to those types of brands and companies that are really looking to work with WNBA players.\u201d<\/p>\n The opportunities for women\u2019s basketballers have never been more plentiful. Last month, Smith\u2019s other teammates Natisha Hiedeman and Courtney Williams were featured in Vogue magazine. Last week, Chicago Sky\u2019s Angel Reese walked on the Victoria\u2019s Secret runway<\/a>. At the top end, Indiana Fever\u2019s Caitlin Clark has an estimated net worth of $11 million.<\/a><\/p>\n An award-winning WNBA season and a historic opportunity in the off-season should be cause for Smith to celebrate. But aside from taking congratulations on passing her honour\u2019s thesis at Monash Univeristy, Smith thinks she still has more to offer. Not only is her best playing ahead of her, but she believes the best for the league is, too.<\/p>\n \u201cIt feels surreal, to be honest,\u201d she said. \u201cI came into the league in 2019, and so I\u2019ve been here for two CBAs \u2026 So I\u2019ve seen the league evolve over real time as I\u2019ve been in it, and this is probably the biggest shift that I\u2019ve seen in the league in terms of changes across the entire system. It\u2019s been amazing to be on the ground and in those conversations and privy to that kind of stuff.<\/p>\n \u201cI feel really grateful that I\u2019m a part of something that\u2019s going to probably be looked back on as a pivotal moment in this league.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Normal text sizeLarger text sizeVery large text size Tasmanian Alanna Smith has had the best season of her…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":226435,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-226434","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226434","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226434"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226434\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/226435"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226434"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226434"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226434"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"WNBA](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/03ea740c7be18dbac7d5d380ea16470300339b73.jpeg\")
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