Why WNBA players are wearing ‘pay us what you owe us’ shirts

WNBA players sent a message to the league ahead of their All-Star Game in Indianapolis Saturday: “Pay us what you owe us.”

All of the players on Team Clark and Team Collier wore shirts with the message as they warmed up in front of a sold-out crowd of over 16,000 attendees and millions more viewers at home.

The declaration came days after more than 40 players met with the WNBA and failed to reach a new collective bargaining agreement. The players opted out of their last CBA in October and are negotiating for a better revenue-sharing model, higher salaries, better benefits and a softer salary cap.

The players weren’t satisfied with the progress in negotiations as they head toward a late-October deadline, the Associated Press reports.

They decided to wear the “pay us what you owe us” shirts at a meeting Saturday morning, knowing the All-Star Game was one of the last high-profile events where all players would be in one place before the regular season ends in September.

One major sticking point in negotiations between WNBA players and the league is the salary structure and revenue-sharing agreements.

The league wants to pay based on a fixed percentage whereas players want “a better share where our salaries grow with the business, and not just a fixed percentage over time,” according to Nneka Ogwumike, president of the Women’s National Basketball Players Association labor union and Seattle Storm forward.

WNBA players currently receive 9.3% of league revenue, including TV deals, tickets and merchandise sales, MarketWatch reports. In comparison, NBA revenue is split roughly 50/50 between players and owners, with players receiving between 49% and 51% of basketball-related income.

The WNBA has grown rapidly in recent years, including a new $2.2 billion media deal and expansion fees of $250 million. It recently awarded three new expansion teams to Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia, which will grow the league to 18 teams over the next five years.

The league had a record 2024 season with historic viewership, attendance and merchandise sales led by fandom around stars like Indiana Fever’s Caitlin Clark.

In turn, players want a salary structure that gives them a “[larger] piece of the pie that we helped create,” Minnesota Lynx forward and 2025 CNBC Changemaker Napheesa Collier said to press after the game.

“We want to be able to have that fair share moving forward, especially as we see all of the investment going in, and we want to be able to have our salaries reflected in a structure that makes sense for us,” Ogwumike said.

WNBA salaries currently range from the league minimum of $66,079 to the maximum of $249,244. The average WNBA base salary is $102,249, according to Spotrac data.

The league minimum in the NBA is now $1.27 million and the average salary is more than $13 million, according to data from Sports Reference.

Some say comparing the pay structure between the men’s and women’s leagues isn’t exactly fair. The NBA has been around for more than 75 years, has a six-month regular season and brings in billions of dollars in corporate sponsorships, while the WNBA is in its 29th season and plays four months out of the year. The NBA has around $13 billion in revenue while the WNBA is roughly around $200 million, CNBC reported in 2024.

To others, WNBA’s salary structure is “blatantly unfair to its players,” top sports agent Jeff Schwartz said in an interview with CNBC Sport in January. Schwartz founded and runs Excel Sports Management, which represents more than 500 clients including Collier, Clark, Tiger Woods and Peyton Manning and has negotiated billions in athlete contracts.

“The WNBA has to figure this out,” Schwartz said of the CBA negotiations and player salaries, otherwise many athletes may choose to play overseas to supplement their league income. They could also start their own, like his client Collier’s Unrivaled, a 3-on-3 startup women’s basketball league which offers players equity and a reported $220,000 paycheck — the highest average player salary of any professional women’s sports league, according to Unrivaled.

WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert described recent CBA talks as “constructive” and ongoing, talking to press ahead of the All-Star Game.

“I want a lot of the same things the players want,” she said. “I’m still really optimistic that we’ll get something done that will be transformational and next year at All-Star we’ll be talking about how great everything is. Obviously, there’s a lot of hard work to be done on both sides to get there.”

“We were at a very different place in 2020 than we are in 2025,” Engelbert said of when the last CBA was reached. “I think you’ll see the revenue-sharing be a much more lucrative one as we go forward because we’re in a better place, quite frankly.”

WNBA players characterized the meeting as a “missed opportunity,” hence their Saturday warmup shirts.

The second half of the WNBA season resumes Tuesday, and players from the All-Star Game say they haven’t decided if they’ll wear the shirts on their own teams in the weeks ahead, the AP reports.

Some players, including All-Stars Collier and Angel Reese, say they may stage a walkout if a new CBA is not reached by October.

The WNBA did not respond to CNBC Make It’s request for comment by time of publication.

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