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Some misconceptions and blatantly wrong opinions about women’s sports, the WNBA in particular, just won’t die out. Something WNBA players have to hear constantly, especially since the current CBA negotiations started up, is that their demands for higher salaries are unreasonable because the league isn’t making enough profit, and that they don’t deserve to earn as much as the men because, to some people, the WNBA will always be a “lesser” version of the NBA.
The difference between NBA and WNBA earnings is huge. In the 2025 season, Kelsey Mitchell was the highest-paid WNBA player, making $269,244. Meanwhile, Stephen Curry signed a one-year $62.6 million extension to keep him under contract with the Golden State Warriors through the 2026-27 NBA season. However, WNBA players have never asked to make that kind of money. What they want is higher salaries that correspond with the league’s growth and fair revenue shares to benefit from the money the league makes through the players. Several players have stated that very directly over the last few years. Now, A’ja Wilson has joined the list.
Wilson appeared on Kylie Kelce’s podcast Not Gonna Lie on November 13. When asked what the biggest misconception around the current CBA negotiations was, Wilson said, “That we just want to get paid like the guys. I hate when people say that…The biggest thing is just meeting the fair agreement of what we are discussing. It’s never what the NBA is doing. It’s never, ‘We want to be paid what they got.’ No, we understand that that’s not how the business works, but we also understand what we’re missing within our own business. The revenue share is missing in our own business and in our own checks.”
The 2020 CBA included a revenue-sharing system in which the players would get 17.5% of revenue once the league hits a specific target. Due to COVID-19, which led to empty arenas and no ticket sales, that target was never reached, and, even without the pandemic, it would have been a lofty goal. Instead, players are currently estimated to get around 9-10% of the league’s revenue. Upping that share is one of the players’ main goals.
The NBA and WNBA aren’t really comparable when it comes to money
While NBA players and WNBA players play the same sport, the two leagues are not comparable when it comes to money. For one, we live in a world in which men’s sports have always been favored and received funding, support, and marketing that women’s sports couldn’t even dream of for a very long time. So, the NBA has always operated with a huge advantage when it comes to making money.
Secondly, the NBA has been around for over 70 years, and most fans don’t even remember that the league also struggled in its early seasons. The WNBA, meanwhile, has only been around since the late 90s and had to combat a cruel mixture of sexism, racism, and homophobia on its way to becoming the league it is today—and still continues to do just that—and entering mainstream sports culture.
The WNBA is in a much different stage of its development and players are well aware of that. They just want to make sure they get to benefit from the growth they are generating.
