She isn\u2019t the root of all The W\u2019s issues, but her decisions are why the league\u2019s first potential work stoppage will be one of the many missteps that will define her tenure.<\/p>\n
The momentum from consecutive years of record fanfare, public interest, television ratings, and revenue growth for women\u2019s college basketball and the WNBA may soon screech to a halt in the world\u2019s premier professional basketball league for women. However, growing pains are necessary for the league to evolve and for its players to be better compensated. These women understand their worth. They wore \u201cPay Us What You Owe Us<\/a>\u201d t-shirts at the All-Star Game for a reason. And that\u2019s why a work stoppage might be one of those necessary growing pains.<\/p>\n \u201cAt midnight, the 2020 WNBA-WNBPA Collective Bargaining Agreement will expire. Despite demonstrating our willingness to compromise to get a deal done, the WNBA and its teams have failed to meet us at the table with the same spirit and seriousness,\u201d the WNBA Players Association said in a statement<\/a> released 30 minutes before the CBA was set to expire. \u201cInstead, they have remained committed to undervaluing player contributions, dismissing player concerns, and running out the clock.\u201d<\/p>\n Currently, the league and its players have entered a \u201cstatus quo\u201d period, continuing to operate under the rules of the 2020 CBA. However, either side could announce a work stoppage at any moment.<\/p>\n I say, let the madness begin.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s so much that is mind-boggling when you hear how they\u2019re treating us,\u201d said veteran WNBA guard Courtney Williams on a recent live stream<\/a> when discussing the situation.<\/p>\n \u201cThe league wants to pay themselves first, before they pay us,\u201d she explained. \u201cWhen they pay themselves, it leaves less than 30 percent for us to split with them.<\/p>\n \u201cThe league is basically saying that they want us to stay at less than 15 percent each year. So if the league grows, we stay at 15 percent the whole way through.<\/p>\n \u201cThey want to pay all their expenses first, but, mind you, they don\u2019t consider the players as expenses, but they consider coaches as expenses,\u201d Williams claimed. \u201cThey still want to pay coaches more than A\u2019ja Wilson or Napheesa Collier.\u201d<\/p>\n Wilson is the league\u2019s first and only four-time MVP; she is also a three-time WNBA Champion and two-time WNBA Finals MVP. Collier is one of the three best players in the league. Wilson\u2019s coach, Becky Hammon, earns over $1 million per year<\/a>. Wilson made only $200,000<\/a>. Collier\u2019s contract paid her a little over $214,000.<\/p>\n The math isn\u2019t mathing.<\/p>\n Reportedly<\/a>, the Players\u2019 Union is still waiting on a counteroffer to the proposal sent to the league several weeks ago. The players desire a salary cap somewhere around $10.5 million, with the maximum salary reaching $2.5 million, and 30% of gross revenue. The league wants the salary cap at $5 million with max salaries slightly above $1 million and 70% of net revenue. Things are at a standstill this offseason with only two league veterans who aren\u2019t free agents. It\u2019s why this week both sides came to an agreement to put free agency on hold<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cBeing on this side with Unrivaled, I know what it takes to run a sustainable business,\u201d Collier said recently<\/a>. She is co-founder of the women\u2019s 3-on-3 league that had an average player salary of $200,000<\/a> in its inaugural season last year. \u201cSo, I think if they can\u2019t find a model that makes that happen, they need to put people in place who can.\u201d<\/p>\n Last fall, Collier and Englebert were involved in a very heated public back-and-forth<\/a> when the Minnesota Lynx star alleged that the commissioner once told her that \u201cOnly the losers complain about the refs\u201d in a league that\u2019s been hampered by bad officiating. And that Caitlin Clark should be \u201cgrateful\u201d for the WNBA, as \u201cplayers should be on their knees thanking their lucky stars for the media rights deal that I got them.\u201d<\/p>\n One would think the league and its owner would want to get a deal done because of the popularity of women\u2019s basketball now. Young stars entering the league can make millions in college via name, image, and likeness rights, and established stars are cashing in huge endorsement deals off the court. Playing hardball with women who aren\u2019t necessarily depending on WNBA contracts to survive is a bad business strategy.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also the fact that this is a league whose players have proved that they\u2019ll do what\u2019s necessary when motivated. As of now, 98% of the players who voted supported authorizing a strike<\/a> if necessary. Don\u2019t forget, when players in the league showed their support for Philando Castile and Alton Sterling, police officers left their security posts. And their support of Raphael Warnock\u2014players wore \u201cVote Warnock\u201d shirts\u2014helped him become Georgia\u2019s first Black senator despite having polled as low as 9%. Warnock defeated former WNBA team owner Kelly Loeffler. And we saw how the league came together to make sure Brittney Griner wasn\u2019t forgotten<\/a> when she was stuck in a Russian jail cell.<\/p>\n The issues that WNBA players are fighting for mirror those faced by athletes in other professional sports. Negotiating with owners for a bigger piece of the pie is par for the course<\/a>. For instance, there have been nine work stoppages in Major League Baseball history<\/a>, the last one coming in 2021-2022. The NFL has had six work stoppages<\/a>, as pro football and the NBA both experienced pauses in 2011.<\/p>\n The \u201cHistory\u201d tab of the WNBA\u2019s website<\/a> details how the league, which began in 1997, has been \u201cthe home for the world\u2019s best women\u2019s basketball talent.\u201d Nearly 30 years later, however, the owners are being stingy with the fruits of the players\u2019 labor. Ideally, WNBA players wouldn\u2019t have to fight for fair compensation in a league led by a woman. Unfortunately, history has proved that women can be a woman\u2019s adversary<\/a>.<\/p>\n Carron J. Phillips is an award-winning journalist who writes on race, culture, social issues, politics, and sports. He hails from Saginaw, Michigan, and is a graduate of Morehouse College and Syracuse University.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Carron J. Phillips If you ask the ladies of the WNBA who their biggest \u201chater\u201d is, they\u2019ll…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":411636,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":["post-411635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411635","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=411635"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/411635\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/411636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=411635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=411635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=411635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/https:\/\/substack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/public\/images\/05038e14-b9b2-4f58-9e5d-c844241ce99f_3537.jpeg\")
<\/a>(zimmytws\/iStock)<\/p>\n