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The ongoing WNBA CBA negotiations between the league’s leadership and the players have attracted a lot of attention. While the league and the union have each issued their own statements about the proceedings, there are also plenty of people weighing in via social media — and their arguments aren’t usually as sound.
One of the most persistent arguments against the players’ demands is that the WNBA is not profitable. This one tends to be bandied about online seemingly without much critical thinking behind it; after all, it’s an idea that’s easy to glom onto. And, more nefariousy, despite tremendous gains made in terms of viewership and game attendance, there are still plenty of people out there who will latch on to anything that denegrates women’s sports (and, it seems, that’s especially true if the women in question are making demands).
But one need only look back at the history of the NBA to understand how long it can take for a league to become profitable — and why profitability shouldn’t be the determining factor in terms of paying players what they’ve earned.
It took decades for the NBA to become profitable
The NBA was founded in June 1946 as the Basketball Association of America; the league merged with the National Basketball League to become the NBA three years later.
Assuming a CBA is signed, the 2026 season will be the WNBA’s 30th. Though it’s tempting to compare the WNBA of 2026 to the NBA of 2026 in terms of viability, it’s more fair to look at where the NBA was in its third decade, and the 1970s were hardly particularly successful ones for the men’s game.
NBA game attendance averaged out at under 8,000 people per match, and the league reported $32 million in revenue to Congress in 1971 — roughly $244 million in 2026 money. Per Forbes, every single team in the league now earns more than the league did as a whole that year. But these numbers were huge when compared to 20 years prior, when the league brought in approximately $20 million in 2026 dollars and fewer than 5,000 fans were showing up to games.
The NBA built its modern day success through media deals, not unlike what the WNBA is attempting to do now. The NBA also endured a lockout that lasted 72 days in 1995 over issues that may feel familiar to WNBA fans: rookie contracts, salary caps among them. The lockout was the first in the league’s history and in the end, the players got what they were after.
