They must craft the fine filigree of an agreement that ensures the viability and sustainability of the burgeoning basketball league, while also providing the players with the compensation and accommodations they desire and deserve. It’s a needle we fans need them to thread.
What makes sports collective bargaining agreements more complex than other industries is that the players are both the employees and the product. The WNBA is rising on the backs of A’ja Wilson, Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Sabrina Ionescu, Napheesa Collier, Paige Bueckers, etc. Owners often have a difficult time reconciling that reality.
“There’s an appetite for women’s basketball everywhere, especially big cities like this,” said Indiana Fever guard Lexie Hull before her team faced the Connecticut Sun at TD Garden on Tuesday.
That was evident as Clark’s Fever and the Sun played to a packed house of 19,156 against the backdrop of Boston making a vocal push for a WNBA team that includes the Boston City Council and Governor Maura Healey. It was the second straight year the WNBA sold out the Garden.
Market conditions are ideal for the WNBA — national viewership is up 23 percent, attendance has increased 26 percent, and merchandise sales have risen 40 percent, according to the league.But there are real transformative issues that the players, who in recent years pushed for charter travel and better facilities, want addressed. They emphasized that donning T-shirts reading Pay Us What You Owe Us at Saturday’s All-Star Game.
The max salary for 2025 is approximately $249,000. Players can make substantially more than that via league and team marketing deals, the Commissioner’s Cup, playoff bonuses, and individual award bonuses — a total of up to $750,000.
But in anticipation of a new CBA, some highly-touted players who could’ve gone in the first round of the WNBA Draft such as Olivia Miles elected to return to school.
Why? The iconic Clark is in the second year of a four-year rookie deal with a total base salary of $338,056 — $84,514 per season. When Sabrina Ionescu won the 3-point contest Friday, she gifted $30,000 of her prize money to rookie Sonia Citron.
The counter from the WNBA would be that it’s not fair to compare its salaries, in Year 29, to longer established men’s professional sports leagues that rake in billions. Plus, the 2020 CBA was heralded as a significant step forward as salaries more than tripled.
The WNBA also has extended beyond this CBA to introduce full charter travel at a cost of about $25 million per year and increased postseason bonuses significantly.
One issue that boasts the support of the coaches is expanding rosters. The maximum roster size is 12 players, but teams can carry 11. When injuries strike, this can send clubs scrambling. It also means that first-round picks and talented international players get cut in roster crunches.
Fever coach and former Sun coach Stephanie White said it’s time for the WNBA to grow rosters.
“I think plural, extra spots. Shoot, back in the old days, I think we had 15. We had 15 and two on IR,” said White, a former WNBA player.
“It’s not just about having players every day in practice. It’s about when injuries happen and you need somebody else that is going to be in the rotation that you have players that have been in practice every day that have continued to get experience.
“It’s about building quality depth in our league, so that when we have expansion drafts we have players that are ready. It’s about continuing to grow young players who might not be ready as soon as they come out of college. … I think it’s time for us to grow in that area. I really do. … I think it’s important.”
That’s an investment in the WNBA product that will pay dividends.
The WNBA is not yet a consistently profitable league. Still, the players see the league has a new $2.2 billion media rights deal kicking in next season. They see it will welcome in two expansion teams next season (Toronto and Portland) to bring the W up to 15 teams, with three more expansion teams in Detroit, Cleveland, and Philadelphia on deck. Each of those three clubs paid a $250 million expansion franchise fee.
They want their share of that (revenue) pie.
“The business is booming — media rights, ratings, revenue, team valuations, expansion fees, attendance, and ticket sales — are all up in historic fashion. But short-changing the working women who make this business possible stalls growth,” said the WNBPA in a statement following Thursday’s negotiations.
“There’s an appetite for women’s basketball everywhere, especially big cities like this,” said Indiana Fever guard Lexie Hull before her team faced the Connecticut Sun at TD Garden on Tuesday.Heather Diehl/For The Boston Globe
Yet, many a business has faltered by presuming precipitous growth would continue unabated. The W doesn’t want to be the pro sports version of Icarus, soaring too close to the sun on the wings and winds of popularity and then crashing as it overextends.
“We want to have a fair deal for all, but it has to be within the confines of a sustainable economic model that goes on for 10 years,” WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert told the Associated Press.
“We’ve had a few years of great growth, but we need to continue to make sure that we can fund the things that the players are asking for, that we want for them, too.”
Engelbert remains optimistic that the sides will reach a deal. She agrees with the union that this new CBA should be “transformational.” The degree of transformation, gradual or dynamic, is the issue.
The next steps are crucial for the WNBA. There’s inherent conflict and a balancing act between forging ahead with brio to raise the bar for women’s basketball, and enshrining and ensuring the palpable progress made thus far this decade.
“It’s incredible. It’s what we always imagined it to be,” said White.
Three letters, CBA, can’t stop the WNBA from pushing forward.
Christopher L. Gasper is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at christopher.gasper@globe.com. Follow him @cgasper and on Instagram @cgaspersports.