{"id":23215,"date":"2025-07-25T14:20:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T14:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/23215\/"},"modified":"2025-07-25T14:20:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-25T14:20:08","slug":"athlete-led-advocacy-in-the-wnba","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/23215\/","title":{"rendered":"Athlete Led Advocacy in the WNBA"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At a recent WNBA All-Star Game, the league\u2019s top players took the court wearing black T-shirts emblazoned with a clear message: \u201cPay Us What You Owe Us.\u201d\u00a0 That action was part of a collective bargaining push by the players and their union to negotiate for higher salaries and better benefits, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2025\/07\/21\/why-wnba-players-are-wearing-pay-us-what-you-owe-us-shirts.html\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">news accounts.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.acrossthetimeline.com\/wnba\/attendance.html#season=1997&amp;set=overallseason\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Across the Timeline<\/a>, the WNBA\u2019s average game attendance is the highest it\u2019s ever been. The league is preparing to expand into new markets, adding teams in Portland, Toronto, Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia. Despite that, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.marketwatch.com\/story\/wnba-players-only-get-9-3-of-league-revenue-heres-how-much-nba-nfl-and-nhl-players-get-0abef80c\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MarketWatch<\/a> reports that WNBA players receive 9.3% of the league\u2019s overall revenue, which is a fifth of the share players in most other professional leagues receive.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/usw2.nyl.as\/t1\/273\/am9iaa83f98fnag7lbtb7virl\/2\/5b98bedda037a430d6ea317195d1c36e4d9f79918e6450e99caf697d737428f3\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Meredith Geisler<\/a>, assistant professor at the George Washington University School of Business, spent over three decades helping professional athletes craft their public image, including WNBA stars Tamika Catchings, Chamique Holdsclaw, and Alana Beard. As a longtime communications strategist, she\u2019s seen how athlete activism has evolved from behind-the-scenes frustrations to coordinated, on-camera moments that spark national conversation.<\/p>\n<p>Geisler can speak to how this messaging aligns with broader trends in athlete empowerment, the business and reputational risks leagues face when players publicly challenge the status quo, and why women&#8217;s sports have reached a tipping point in visibility and influence.<\/p>\n<p>If you would like to schedule an interview with Professor Geisler, please contact Claire Sabin at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.newswise.com\/cdn-cgi\/l\/email-protection#b5d6d9d4dcc7d09bc6d4d7dcdbf5d2c2c09bd0d1c0\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">[email\u00a0protected]<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>-GW-<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"At a recent WNBA All-Star Game, the league\u2019s top players took the court wearing black T-shirts emblazoned with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23216,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,19118,6808,82,630],"class_list":["post-23215","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-george-washington-university","tag-newswise","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23215","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=23215"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23215\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}