{"id":260388,"date":"2025-11-04T05:35:40","date_gmt":"2025-11-04T05:35:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/260388\/"},"modified":"2025-11-04T05:35:40","modified_gmt":"2025-11-04T05:35:40","slug":"adam-silver-says-on-today-wnba-players-will-get-big-increase-in-pay-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/260388\/","title":{"rendered":"Adam Silver Says on TODAY WNBA Players Will Get \u2018Big Increase\u2019 in Pay Talks"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the WNBA television ratings, revenues and ticket sales continue to grow, the league\u2019s players have been calling for a bigger piece of the pie like the one their counterparts in the NBA have gotten for years. <\/p>\n

A growing chorus of WNBA stars have been calling for a larger revenue share as the collective bargaining agreement between the WNBA players\u2019 union and the league gets set to expire on Oct. 31 and will need to be renegotiated. <\/p>\n

Players like Minnesota Lynx star Napheesa Collier and Los Angeles Sparks guard Kelsey Plum have spoken about the players wanting higher salaries and a bigger share of the league\u2019s revenue. At the WNBA All-Star Game in July, the league\u2019s biggest names wore black shirts with \u201cPay Us What You Owe Us<\/a>\u201c on them. <\/p>\n

NBA commissioner Adam Silver addressed the issue Oct. 21 on TODAY in an exclusive interview with Craig Melvin. The NBA owns 42% of the WNBA, and WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert reports to Silver. <\/p>\n

He was asked if WNBA players should be getting a larger share of the revenue in the league. <\/p>\n

\u201cYes,\u201d Silver said. \u201cI think \u2018share\u2019 isn\u2019t the right way to look at it because there\u2019s so much more revenue in the NBA. I think you should look at it in absolute numbers in terms of what they\u2019re making, and they are going to bet a big increase in this cycle of collective bargaining, and they deserve it.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"CaitlinIndiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark and other WNBA stars have advocated for a higher share of revenue for the league’s players. Jeff Bottari \/ NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Silver\u2019s appearance coincides with the NBA\u2019s return to NBC after 23 years, which kicks off with a season-opening doubleheader<\/a> on Oct. 21. <\/p>\n

WNBA players get 9.3% of league-generated income under the current collective bargaining agreement, according to Market Watch<\/a>, compared to NBA players getting roughly 49-51% of the league\u2019s basketball-related income under their own bargaining agreement. <\/p>\n

The WNBA\u2019s players are not arguing for equivalent salaries to NBA players, although much has been made of Indiana Fever superstar Caitlin Clark making a reported $76,000 a year<\/a> on her rookie contract. They are instead calling for a bigger share of the league\u2019s revenue that\u2019s roughly equivalent to their NBA counterparts. <\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of times, the misinformation comes in where we\u2019re asking to be paid what the men are being paid. That\u2019s not true,\u201d Plum said on the \u201cAll the Smoke\u201d podcast<\/a> in July. \u201cWe\u2019re asking just the same percentage of revenue or a similar percentage of revenue. And right now, that\u2019s not the case. And so that\u2019s what we\u2019re fighting for.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"A'jaA’ja Wilson and the Las Vegas Aces took home this year’s WNBA title. Kevin C. Cox \/ Getty Images<\/p>\n

\u201cWe get a very tiny percentage of all the money that\u2019s made through the WNBA, which obviously is made through the entertainment we provide,\u201d Collier told The Associated Press<\/a> in July. \u201cSo we want a fair and reasonable percentage of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collier made headlines in September when she blasted Engelbert<\/a>, during her 2025 season exit interview, saying the WNBA has the \u201cworst leadership in the world\u201d and claiming Engelbert said Clark and other stars \u201cshould be on their knees\u201d thanking the WNBA for giving them a platform to make money off the court. Engelbert responded by saying she was \u201cdisheartened\u201d by how her conversations with Collier were characterized.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the WNBA television ratings, revenues and ticket sales continue to grow, the league\u2019s players have been calling…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260389,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-260388","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\/260388","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=260388"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260388\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260388"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260388"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260388"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}