WNBA players on both Team Clark and Team Collier, including huge stars like Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers and Angel Reese, wore “Pay Us What You Owe Us” t-shirts during warm-ups ahead of Saturday night’s All-Star Game.
The shirts come after the players and the league failed to reach a new collective bargaining agreement at an in-person meeting Thursday. The league’s players opted out of their last CBA in October, and they are looking for a better revenue-sharing model, increased salaries, improved benefits and a softer salary cap after unprecedented success with record attendance and TV ratings in 2024.
After the failed negotiations, many players said there was a large discrepancy between what they wanted and what the league was offering. If a new CBA is not reached by October, some players have mentioned the potential of a walkout.
Currently, 20% of league revenue goes to player salaries. For 2025, salaries ranged from a minimum of $66,000 to a super maximum of roughly $250,000, per Sports Illustrated. The team salary cap is approximately $1.5 million, while the team payroll minimum is $1.2 million, per Her Hoop Stats. The average salary this year is $102,249, per Spotrac.
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert feels optimistic that the league and the players’ union will be able to come to a new deal at some point, even if it’s after the end of October deadline.
While the two sides are far apart right now after meeting this week for the first time in person since December, Engelbert has faith that a “transformational” deal will get finished.
“I’m still really optimistic that we’ll get something done … and that next year at All-Star, we’ll be talking about how great everything is,” she said Saturday. “Obviously, there’s a lot of hard work to be done on both sides to get there.”
Engelbert said that more meetings are planned in the future. “I have confidence we can get something done by October, but I’m not going to put an exact date on it,” she said. “We’ve got some room to continue negotiations if we’re close at that point.”
There’s a lot of money coming into the league over the next few years with a new 11-year media rights deal worth over $2.2 billion, three new expansion teams that each paid $250 million in fees and many new sponsors.
The players’ top priorities are greatly increased salaries and a revenue-sharing plan, which Engelbert understands.
“We’re going to do something transformational here because we want the same things as the players, but we want to significantly increase their salary and benefits while balancing with our owners, their ability to have a path to profitability, as well as in to continued investment,” she said.
Other areas that Engelbert discussed included globalization, officiating and scheduling.
Engelbert talked about trying to expand the footprint of the league around the world more. The league will welcome its first team outside the U.S. next year with the addition of the Toronto Tempo. Engelbert mentioned Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa as places that could have huge interest in the WNBA.
“I think we’re really strong domestically now,” she said. “There [are] a huge [number] of possibilities to turn these players into a global household being stars that they’ve now become here in the United States domestically.”
The consistency of officiating has been a topic that players and coaches have been discussing a lot this season and Engelbert said that the league is aware and will evaluate it.
“I realize consistency is the name of the game and I think it’s something we definitely need to look at and evaluate,” Engelbert said. “There’s an independent evaluation of our officials and there are ramifications. It’s something we need to continue to work on. As our game evolves, so does our officiating, so we’re on it.”
Engelbert also said that the league would look at possibly expanding the length of the season in the future at the end of the season. The WNBA can’t really start any earlier because of the NCAA Tournament, but it could go into early November. There’s a good shot that will happen next year with the FIBA World Cup taking place in early September.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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