The WNBA Has a Good Problem on Its Hands

The Atlantic

28-07-2025

For the first time in the nearly three-decade history of U.S. professional women's basketball, its star players have become household names. What would it take for them to get paid accordingly?
While warming up recently for the WNBA All-Star Game, players wore T-shirts that read Pay Us What You Owe Us, in reference to the ongoing collective-bargaining negotiations between the players and the league. Until that point, there had not been much buzz about the WNBA's negotiations, but the shirts had their intended result, taking the players' labor fight mainstream. As the WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert presented the All-Star Game MVP award to Napheesa Collier, fans inside Indianapolis's Gainbridge Fieldhouse booed Engelbert and chanted, 'Pay them!'
Outside the arena, however, the reaction was more mixed. As the WNBA became a trending topic on X and national pundits began to weigh in, many turned out to not share the perspective of the fans at the game. Dan Hollaway, a co-host of the podcast Drinkin' Bros, posted on X that the players should actually be paying back the team owners, given the league's unprofitability: 'Ladies, you owe, not the other way around.' Another post critical of the players' efforts was viewed nearly 40 million times. 'Imagine being an employee at a company that has NEVER turned a profit and showing up to work in these shirts,' Jason Howerton wrote.
Many critics cited a New York Post article from last October reporting that, despite the WNBA's explosive growth in 2024—which was punctuated by the arrival of the Indiana Fever sensation Caitlin Clark—the league was expected to lose $40 million that year. A source close to the situation told the Post that the NBA, which owns a large share of the women's league, was antsy about the WNBA's unprofitability.
The timing of the Post 's report was interesting. It came three days before the WNBA players' union announced that it was opting out of the current collective-bargaining agreement. To some degree, this is part of the gamesmanship that takes place whenever there is labor tension between players and owners. During the 2011 NBA lockout, owners claimed that they were on track to lose $300 million that season and had suffered similar losses since 2005. Further analysis showed that this wasn't true, and that the league was in fact profitable.
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To be fair, claims that the WNBA has been unable to turn a profit during its 28 years of existence are more credible. Over that time frame, NBA owners have indeed spent a considerable amount of money to keep the league afloat. But that spending wasn't charity; it was an investment. And the investment is very clearly about to pay off.
The 30 NBA team owners own 42 percent of the WNBA; another 42 percent is controlled by private WNBA ownership, and the remaining 16 percent belongs to an investment group that stimulated a $75 million capital infusion in 2022. Among the notable names in that investment group are former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, The Boston Globe CEO Linda Henry, and Michael and Susan Dell.
The capital raise was so big because investors could see what was coming. The WNBA's profile had already been growing steadily. Then came Clark, whose presence—and rivalry with fellow rising star Angel Reese, of the Chicago Sky—is poised to financially elevate the WNBA beyond anyone's expectations.
Last year set popularity records for the WNBA across the board, and the growth shows no signs of slowing. In 2024, ESPN, the league's primary television partner, saw a 170 percent boost in viewership. Overall ratings are up by 23 percent this year. Ticket sales are up 26 percent, and merchandise sales have increased by 40 percent.
The most important figure is $2.2 billion. That's the value of the 11-year media-rights deal that the WNBA secured last year, which starts in 2026. It includes partnerships with Disney (ESPN's parent company), Prime Video, and NBC Universal. The league also signed a separate deal with Ion Television to air games on Friday nights. Terms weren't disclosed, but reports speculated that between the two deals, the WNBA has a media package worth close to $3 billion over the next decade.
This colossal source of revenue helps explain the immense valuations of WNBA franchises.
The WNBA will add five expansion teams by 2030. Owners in the three cities that have so far been awarded a franchise—Detroit, Philadelphia, and Cleveland—paid a fee of $250 million each to join the league. Ten of the existing 13 WNBA teams are valued at $200 million or more. The Golden State Valkyries top the list, at an estimated $500 million. The Valkyries, which in 2023 became the WNBA's first expansion team in 17 years, are the first women's professional sports team to ever be valued that high. They also lead the league in attendance—a sign that the sport's popularity doesn't depend on Clark.
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With such outsize growth happening across the league, the fact that WNBA players currently receive a mere 9.3 percent of the league's total revenue is embarrassing. (That works out to about $78,000 for Clark and a bit less for Reese, who are still on their rookie contracts, and just over $249,000 for the league's highest-paid veterans.) By comparison, players in the NBA, the NHL, and the NFL all receive about half of their league's sports-related income. Even in the Ultimate Fighting Championship—which has a nasty history of underpaying its fighters—the athletes receive 16 to 20 percent of the revenue. The WNBA isn't yet as big as those leagues, and its players have never said they should be paid as much as Patrick Mahomes or LeBron James. Their argument is only that they deserve a similar proportion of the revenue generated by their labor.
Every professional sports league has experienced financial ups and downs, but that has never stopped the players from demanding and receiving more. The NBA was in such bad shape in the late 1960s and early '70s that teams had to pool together money to subsidize the salaries of the league's top players, including Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Elvin Hayes. Heading into the early '80s, the league's future was precarious because of rampant drug problems among players and low television ratings. The arrival of Magic Johnson and Larry Bird helped change all of that.
In every sports league, players have had to fight for their worth. At 28 years old, the WNBA is arguably in better shape than the NBA was at the same juncture. As the league grows, the players' salaries should be growing right along with it.