By Mike Vorkunov, Ben Pickman and Sabreena Merchant
The Women’s National Basketball Players Association opted out of the WNBA’s collective bargaining agreement Monday, setting up a delicate negotiation that will help determine the league’s economic system just as it is taking off.
The decision was no surprise, and the union made it official only a few hours after the conclusion of the WNBA Finals. The players’ union, or the league, had until Nov. 1 to do so, and the players’ association was widely expected to seek a new CBA. The current CBA is set to expire on Oct. 31, 2025.
A union source confirmed to The Athletic that players are prepared to negotiate for as long as it takes to reach a new agreement, even if it means a work stoppage. ESPN was first to report on a potential stoppage. However, both sides appear willing to enter the talks with good faith efforts to strike a new agreement and avoid a lapse in gameplay.
“This is a defining moment, not just for the WNBA, but for all of us who believe in progress,” WNBPA president Nneka Ogwumike said. “The world has evolved since 2020, and we cannot afford to stand still. If we stay in the current agreement, we fall behind.”
She added, “We’re not just asking for a CBA that reflects our value; we’re demanding it, because we’ve earned it.”
The WNBA has changed dramatically since the current CBA was agreed to and implemented. It has gone through a pandemic and then a steep period of growth. It has never been as popular as it is now, and there are strong signs that its financial situation is improving.
The ascent has come thanks to a confluence of factors. After decades of instability, the WNBA seemed to turn the corner during 2020 and 2021. The league sought additional funds from investors through a capital raise and by February, 2o22, had raised $75 million. Viewership started to rise as the league broke through to larger audiences. This year has been a perfect storm. TV ratings skyrocketed and so has interest. The league will add three new franchises through expansion by 2026, with a fourth expected to come shortly after.
Rookie guard Caitlin Clark has become one of the biggest stars in any sport and propelled the league even further forward, as has rookie forward Angel Reese, and incumbent stars A’ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier. A riveting five-game WNBA Finals proved an apt coda to the 2024 season.
“With the historic 2024 WNBA season now in the books, we look forward to working together with the players and the WNBPA on a new CBA that is fair for all and lays the foundation for growth and success for years to come,” WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in a statement.
Now, both sides will have to figure out how to proceed. WNBA players are not guaranteed a defined portion of revenue, as players for the NFL, NBA and NHL have negotiated for themselves in their CBAs. WNBA fans and players have clamored for bigger salaries.
But their desires are likely to go past just money. The WNBPA outlined its priorities in the next bargaining talks, including minimum standards for game and practice facilities, better retirement benefits and family planning and pregnancy benefits.
The current CBA went into effect on Jan. 17, 2020, and in those talks, the players association did make strides on a number of those fronts. Salaries increased across the board, with the average annual player compensation surpassing six figures for the first time. The CBA also implemented progressive family planning, including fully paid maternity leave. Still, there is room for change even on the latter front. The current CBA stipulates that players must have played for eight years — a threshold above many players’ tenures — before a $20,000 benefit for family planning services like egg freezing kicks in.
”Making sure player health and safety is a constant, that charters are locked in, making sure that as we have more moms in this league and parents that those benefits are only getting better,” Stewart told The Athletic during July’s All-Star weekend of issues she was most passionate about.
Added Lynx All-Star Kayla McBride: “It’s always about the players. Just making sure that we’re being taken care of at a high level, player safety, and then also the salaries so we don’t have to go overseas.”
The league has been less clear on what it seems to want, but it likely will want to triage its financial situation at a time when revenue has finally started to grow by significant measures. It instituted charter flights for every team this season after decades of demand.
“Given the transformation of the league that we’ve been working so hard on, building this long-term economic model, we’ve already returned to the players through charter, through increasing playoff bonuses a couple of years ago by over 50 percent,” Engelbert said before Game 1 of the WNBA Finals. “When we get to the bargaining table we’ll continue to talk about the issues that are most important to the players. We actually look forward to engaging in that now that we’ve kind of gotten the media deal we discussed, corporate partners, just everything.”
The league will have a new media rights agreement in 2026 that will pay it an average of $200 million over the next 11 years, up from its current deals valued at roughly $50 million annually. Disney, NBC and Amazon will have national media rights agreements with the league, but it is possible it could add two more packages — it also currently has agreements with ION and CBS — that would end up growing its rights fees even further.
However, when the new agreement was announced, union leadership expressed concerns about how the $200 million figure was decided upon and believes that the WNBA’s product remains undervalued even under the new agreement.
Furthermore, how that money trickles down to teams is unclear. The NBA owns 42.5 percent of the league, and the WNBA sold roughly 16 percent in equity in the capital raise. League revenues get dispersed to teams in what league stakeholders have described as a waterfall, but who gets what and in what order is not known.
“The players made the decision to opt out of the last CBA to realign the business and save the league from its own limitations,” WNBPA executive director Terri Carmichael Jackson said. “Today, with a stronger foundation and new investments flowing in, they’re opting out again — this time to fully professionalize the league, secure proper wages, improve working conditions, and lock in meaningful benefits.”
Required reading
(Photo: Sarah Stier / Getty Images)
