We all remember when Iowa icon Caitlin Clark got robbed (by a Nike shoe deal). The number one pick overall in the 2024 WNBA draft signed an eight-year, $28 million deal with Nike that includes a signature shoe, various apparel and her own distinct logo. Signed in April 2024, this deal made history as the most lucrative women’s shoe deal in basketball history. 

The race to sign Caitlin Clark was no easy feat, with companies getting shin splints trying to meet the demands of Clark’s agents. Clark talked to Puma, Under Armour and Adidas alongside Nike. However, their offers could not compete with the applied pressure by her agents, requiring at least $3 million per year following her 49-point game and breaking of the NCAA all-time scoring record on Feb. 15.

Puma dropped out after hearing a figure that large. Adidas couldn’t overcome that hurdle either, falling short by promising just $6 million over the course of four years. The most competitive bid was from Under Armour: four years, $16 million for a shoe deal. But Nike emerged victorious, with an eight-year, $28 million deal. That’s about $72 million short of Victor Wembanyama’s deal, the first pick overall in the 2023 NBA draft. 

This shoe deal was significant in part because it reignited the embers of the age-old argument that the women of the WNBA deserve higher wages. Clark’s current contract is a four-year, $338,056 deal, allowing her to make a little over $78,000 per year. Whenever this is stated, it is quickly refuted by the contention that, since broadcast revenue is lower for the WNBA in comparison to the NBA, the pay disparity is justified. 

During the 2025 WNBA All-Star game, each player donned matching black t-shirts during warm-ups with the words “Pay Us What You Owe Us” printed in white lettering. This statement caused quite a stir, garnering attention from numerous news outlets and catching the eyes of more than 16,000 people in the arena, as well as over 2 million viewers watching from their television screens. 

Their main demand is just that: the women of the WNBA want league leaders to cough up some more cash for their salaries. They are not demanding the same wages as the NBA; however, they are asking for a larger share of revenue, identical to the model of the males. The NBA receives a clean 49% to 51% of the League’s income, while the WNBA receives just 9.3%, the lowest revenue share across major sports leagues in the U.S. 

Another valid rebuttal to this argument is that the WNBA economic model is unsustainable, given that it operates at a financial deficit each year. It was reported by the New York Post that the WNBA lost $40 million in 2024, despite selling out arenas and experiencing a significant jump in merchandise sales, viewership and attendance. However, the league just signed an extremely lucrative 11-year, $2.2 billion deal with Amazon Prime Video, ESPN and NBCUniversal. It is also expanding teams to Toronto, Philadelphia, Portland, Cleveland and Detroit over the course of the next five years. In 2024, despite their massive loss, they made $710 million in revenue, and are projected to grow to $1 billion in revenue in 2025, according to an ESPN report. 

Players have chosen to opt out of their collective bargaining agreement and are trying to negotiate a new one before it expires on Oct. 31, 2025. Currently, WNBA salaries ranges between $66,079 and $249,244, while the NBA salary swings between $1.29 million and a staggering $50 million. 

Another issue is the lack of transparency between the players of the Women’s National Basketball Players Association (WNBPA) and league leadership during contract negotiations. “There is nothing that we know when it comes to how much money the league is making,” WNBPA president and Seattle Storm forward Nneka Ogwumike told Forbes.  

It should not have to be that WNBA players must compete in leagues of their own to avoid going overseas to be compensated fairly. Napheesa Collier, a five-time WNBA All-Star and Minnesota Lynx forward, founded “Unrivaled,” a 3-on-3 professional basketball league alongside New York Liberty forward Breanna Stewart. Collier and Stewart’s league offers a competitive average salary of $220,000, nearing the WNBA maximum base salary. The new league serves as an alternative to competing overseas, a move players used to have to resort to during the offseason as a way of supplementing their income. Backed by brand partnerships from Under Armour and Miller Lite and prestigious investors such as Stephen Curry, Michael Phelps, Coco Gauff and many more, the league presents a unique financial model that impressively almost broke even, generating over $27 million in revenue in 2025.

Salaries haven’t yet changed to reflect the new anticipatory $2.2 billion deal, team expansions, historic viewership, attendance and merchandise sales. Angel Reese, former LSU superstar and current Chicago Sky forward, made an estimated $1.3 million in name, image and likeness (NIL) deals while playing for LSU — proving that collegiate women’s basketball can be more lucrative for players than the WNBA. 

So what’s the solution? While doing research for this article, I found that just about everyone who is advocating or arguing against the “Pay Us What You Owe Us” movement will share their opinions and the figures, but not an actual answer. 

My conclusion is this: the NBA owns about half of the WNBA and is responsible for allotting money between the two leagues. Since the leagues are objectively integrated, according to NBA commissioner Adam Silver, I propose that the NBA do more to allocate funds to the WNBA. That means less money spent on bling like championship rings that are only worn occasionally and Tiffany & Co. trophies made to be wielded around “Simba-style” during the championship parade and then banished behind a glass display for the rest of their days. The Larry O’Brien finals trophy was estimated to cost around $13,500. Championship rings range anywhere between $30,000-$50,000 per ring and, if made with even more exquisite materials, can retail for up to $150,000 per ring. 

With 15-18 players on each NBA team and rings awarded to each player, prominent faculty member, coaching staff, and more, there is no limit to the number of championship rings that are allowed to be distributed. For the sake of this piece, let’s say 30 championship rings are made and distributed, costing $50,000 per ring. That’s $1.5 million spent on rings alone, along with an added $13,000 on the Larry O’Brien finals trophy. With up to 144 players in the WNBA, that means that each player could receive over $10,000 more in their salaries. 

That’s a more equitable way of looking at it, or one could increase the salaries of only the top 20 players in the league, given that not even players in the NBA experience concomitant salary bumps. With that, players would receive an additional $75,000 per person, per season.

It’s probably not as much as they’re demanding, but it’s definitely an improvement. The NBA could instead create a sterling silver trophy like the Super Bowl’s Vince Lombardi Trophy, which is estimated at a mere $2,000 instead. That, along with championship rings made of less expensive materials would begin to allow for better WNBA wages. 

Players like Clark and Collier should not have to be competing in “unrivaled” leagues of their own to seek the wages they are warranted, nor should they have to deal with being constantly robbed (by shoe deals and WNBA contracts). It will be interesting to see what kind of deal comes from the collective bargaining agreement. The women of the “W” deserve better.  

Zora Rodgers

Zora Rodgers is a junior studying film, television, and theatre. She’s from Falls Church, Virginia and has the pajama pants to prove it. When not watching the TODAY Show or writing, she can be found wearing too much perfume and spending her NBC paychecks on SKIMS. You can reach out to her at zrodgers@nd.edu.

The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.