INDIANAPOLIS — The 2025 WNBA All-Stars need only to step outside Gainbridge Fieldhouse and point nearly any direction to prove their value.
On one side is the “Good Morning America” set, where eight players made appearances with Robin Roberts on national TV. On another is life-size banners of the game’s biggest stars. Stand on the roof, and one could catch a glimpse of Caitlin Clark from the largest-ever banner on the JW Marriott Indianapolis. As the sun rose, hundreds of fans in various pieces of player apparel walked the streets with new gear in plastic bags.
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“It’s not lost on us that we’re living the growth as we’re negotiating our worth,” WNBA Players Association president Nneka Ogwumike said on Friday.
The entirety of WNBA All-Star weekend underlines the sharp rise of the business that’s at the core of ongoing collective bargaining agreement (CBA) negotiations. The WNBA is no longer fighting to be here; it’s established and flourishing. Both sides of the table are a giving and beneficiary, producing a delicate push-and-pull at the negotiating table on Thursday in the first in-person meeting of the league’s CBA committee and the players’ union.
The two sides, skills participant Natasha Cloud said, do want the same thing. Everyone should be happy with the goings on in Indianapolis this weekend, a progression from star-studded, heavily invested events in Chicago, Las Vegas and Phoenix since 2022.
“We all want this to be better, including the league, including the front office, including Cathy [Engelbert],” Cloud said. “So it is going to be a collaborative effort moving forward.
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“But with that being said, we are not on the same team when it comes to negotiating the CBA.”
The statement the union pushed out on Thursday evening , another signal the talks were going as poorly as recent comments of a “slap in the face” to players and sparks of work stoppage talks. For many players on Friday morning, there was a staunch stance on their mission while giving a largely more optimistic view that the prior day’s development was not an end-all, be-all.
Others spoke out about the “wasted opportunity,” as Breanna Stewart called it, of not making much progress while more than 40 players were in the same room with the league. The sides want to agree to a deal by the end of October, though they extended the deadline under the last CBA and agreed in January.
Ogwumike, part of multiple CBA negotiation rounds, said the union submitted a proposal in February that “highlighted our idea around salary and salary system” and received a response from the league’s CBA committee that it “was not a proposal.”
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“We sent a more than 50-item list of other things that are involved in the CBA that could perhaps help them consider how they wanted to respond to our biggest ticket, the salary system, while considering all of the other items,” Ogwumike said.
The league responded last month in what players said was too slow a response and left attendees frustrated at the “lack thereof” as to why. There is no next meeting currently in place, Stewart said.
The No. 1 non-negotiable players continue to present is the revenue sharing model and, in turn, higher overall salaries. Players aren’t blind to the money at hand, and these days it’s hitting headlines in droves. The reported $200 million per year in the media rights deal. The $250 million entry fee from each of the three expansion teams entering by 2030. Higher viewership on every channel. More merchandise flying off shelves as quickly as their drives to the basket. Better side deals with brands who see the fresh bloom of dollar signs they historically let die.
“We want a piece of the entire pie, not a piece of part of the pie,” WNBPA first vice president Kelsey Plum said. “I think right now, that’s probably the hardest part.”
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Plum said players want pieces of all the revenue streams, such as media rights, ticketing, jersey sales, and team revenue. She understands it’s more complex than asking for half since there are overhead costs at each league, and team level and team ownership wants its own return on investment.
“I understand that there’s definitely nuances to it,” Plum said. “But overall, the principle of what we’re presenting is understanding that as players, when you guys tune in, you’re tuning in to watch Paige [Bueckers], right? … Just call it what it is, the players are the draw, so I think the players should now take part in that revenue that they’re drawing.”
The league owners’ bargaining stance is not clear, and Engelbert said at the WNBA Draft she would not “comment on specifics.” She will speak to reporters ahead of the All-Star game (8:30 p.m. ET) on Saturday.
“We’re not going to negotiate in the media,” Engelbert said in April. “We’re going to negotiate with the players across the bargaining table.”
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Certain team owners have not been quiet in wanting to more heavily invest in their players to reap the rewards on the court and in their own pockets. The CBA has hamstrung much of that with a hard salary cap and restrictions on resources such as charter flights, which the league introduced last season. Prioritization was a key part of the owners’ side in the last CBA, and likely remains high.
Season flexibility is a stress for them, Stewart said, as the league expands, games are added and the schedule’s footprint. That would help players with the conceded schedule if games went into November, while also hurting those who want to play overseas. And in the stratification of players, there can be very different views on what that means. Golden State’s Kayla Thornton said if the schedule expands and salaries hit the mark the players want, she’s OK with dropping prioritization.
“If the pay was equal to what we get over there and even more, that’s again a no-brainer,” Thornton said. “To be able to stay home, to be able to enjoy our families, and Christmas and Thanksgiving that we miss and we sacrifice to go overseas and work.”
In general terms, it seemed on Friday as if the sides were far away from coming to terms on much of anything.
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“It was pretty shocking to see,” Stewart said. “Not many things did we both agree on. There were probably two bullet points where we were like, OK, we can move forward on this.”
Lying in wait is the question of whether or not the league’s historic growth will take a pause with a potential work stoppage. Players for months have said it’s a possibility, and Ogwumike said on Friday the union would be negligent if they didn’t let players know they should be prepared for anything that could happen. Most players were clear that they hoped it wouldn’t come to it.
“I pray that we’re not getting to that point, because we don’t deserve that,” reigning MVP A’ja Wilson said. “We’ve earned that. We see the proof is in the pudding, and so we’ll see.”
Wilson spoke at her pod in signature Nike shoes while across from her, Sabrina Ionescu did the same. Stewart later walked in wearing her own gear, as did Angel Reese and others. Those same individual logos are littered around Indianapolis, another sign that interest has grown exponentially since the introduction of the last CBA.
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Alyssa Thomas said in the past negotiations when they spoke of lockouts, it was hard with young players not knowing. An unspoken part of that is the younger players and mid-tier role players not having the financial safety umbrella an equal in the NBA would have if there were a stoppage.
But Reese, Bueckers and Clark came into the league with significant bank accounts with name, image, likeness deals exceeding their entire rookie contracts. More sponsor money than ever before is flowing into players’ pockets directly, outpacing their salaries in far greater multitudes than is standard for athletes.
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“We have a lot of leverage this time around,” Thomas said. “Back when we did our last CBA, [we] were still trying to find our footing in the league. I think now we have a lot of power. As you can see, the league is growing. There’s a lot of attention on this right now, and I think we just got to tap into that.”
