{"id":222188,"date":"2025-10-13T19:08:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T19:08:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/222188\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T19:08:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T19:08:10","slug":"champions-on-court-losers-off-wnba-players-call-for-fairer-pay-sports","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/222188\/","title":{"rendered":"Champions on court, losers off: WNBA players call for fairer pay | Sports"},"content":{"rendered":"

The WNBA has just handed the crown to Nevada\u2019s Las Vegas Aces after another season of record numbers in the arenas and the biggest audiences for the WNBA Finals since the founding of the league in 1997. But in spite of the success of Las Vegas Aces, which has bagged three rings in four seasons, and the confirmation of its star American center A\u2019ja Wilson as a generational great contributing largely to the Aces\u2019 third WNBA win in four years, there is conflict in the air<\/a> over the players\u2019 conditions and pay.<\/p>\n

The deadline for the new Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations is the end of October, and if an agreement is not reached, there could be a lockout at a time of great interest<\/a> in professional women\u2019s basketball in the U.S. \u2013 next year there will be two new franchises and by 2030, there is expected to be 18 teams compared to the current 13. The main stumbling block in the negotiations, of course, is money. Currently, the maximum salary in the WNBA is $250,000, while in the men\u2019s NBA<\/a> it is 200 times higher. It should be pointed out that the WNBA players are not asking for the same amount as men; they simply want to get paid the same percentage of shared revenue, as first vice president of the WNBPA players\u2019 association and a member of the Los Angeles Sparks, Kelsey Plum points out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have the capacity to influence, a common goal and unity, especially on the salary issue. We\u2019re not where we\u2019d like to be,\u201d Plum has said. \u201cThe players have been up to the task, with brilliant performances in the competition, with great rivalries, and now it is the league\u2019s turn to take a step in our favor,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n

The WNBA players\u2019 demands concerning revenue sharing implies equivalent contracts to their NBA counterparts. In the NBA, a large part of each player\u2019s salary is linked to basketball-related income (BRI) across the board, including ticket sales, television rights and merchandise. Last year the WNBA recorded a 48% increase in attendance at games, a 170% increase in audiences \u2013 with an average of 1.2 million viewers \u2013 and a 600% increase in merchandise sales.<\/p>\n

By contract, NBA players earn nearly 50% of the BRI, while WNBA players aren\u2019t even guaranteed any income from that source in their contract. Unofficial calculations suggest that what they earned between 2021 and 2025 from that source has fallen from 11 percent to seven percent \u2013 surprising given the women\u2019s competition doubled its turnover in the same period.<\/p>\n

Other issues that the players are fighting over are the inclusion of private flights in their contract \u2013 they now enjoy them under a temporary two-year concession \u2013 as well as greater security in issues such as maternity leave and an improvement in the refereeing establishment, which has been a source of controversy this season.<\/p>\n

In recent weeks, the negotiations have taken a personal turn. Minnesota Lynx star Napheesa Collier accused WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert of being responsible for the league\u2019s poor treatment of its players. \u201cOur leadership\u2019s ability to being held accountable is to suppress everyone\u2019s voices by handing out fines. I\u2019m not concerned about a fine. I\u2019m concerned about the future of our sport,\u201d explained the Minnesota Lynx forward, who is the Women\u2019s National Basketball Players Association vice president and founder of a new women\u2019s competition, Unrivaled.<\/p>\n

To illustrate her displeasure, Collier accused Engelbert of dismissing the fact that the salaries of some of the league\u2019s biggest stars, including Cailtin Clark<\/a>, Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers, were so modest in a private conversation in which Engelbert told her that players should be \u201con their knees thanking their lucky stars for the media rights deal that I got them.\u201d<\/p>\n

She also said, \u201cCaitlin [Clark] should be grateful she makes $16 million off the court because without the platform that the WNBA gives her, she wouldn\u2019t make anything.\u201d Englebert denied making the comments and said she was \u201cdisheartened\u201d by the animosity towards her. \u201cI am disheartened by how Napheesa characterized our conversations and league leadership, but even when our perspectives differ, my commitment to the players and to this work will not waver,\u201d she told The New York Times. Still, she was booed by the Phoenix fans during the presentation of the trophy to the new champions.<\/p>\n

Since Collier\u2019s outburst, the vast majority of stars and players in the competition have backed a change of direction within the WNBA\u2019s leadership. Adam Silver, commissioner of an NBA that still owns 42% of its women\u2019s division, acknowledged that there must be changes within the league. \u201cThere\u2019s no question that the WNBA is going through growing pains and it\u2019s unfortunate that it\u2019s coming just as their most important games and their Finals are on right now. There\u2019s relationship issues as well. I\u2019m confident we can fix those over time,\u201d Silver said prior to the WNBA Finals.<\/p>\n

With the Aces now victorious, all parties will have to roll up their sleeves if they want to save the game before the bargaining agreement deadline.<\/p>\n

Sign up for our weekly newsletter<\/a> to get more English-language news coverage from EL PA\u00cdS USA Edition<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The WNBA has just handed the crown to Nevada\u2019s Las Vegas Aces after another season of record numbers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":222189,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[3691,1760,124887,99,434],"class_list":{"0":"post-222188","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-angel-reese","9":"tag-caitlin-clark","10":"tag-nba-2k25","11":"tag-sports","12":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222188","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=222188"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/222188\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/222189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=222188"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=222188"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=222188"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}