INDIANAPOLIS — The foreshadowing was there all along.
On the eve of All-Star weekend earlier this week, New York Liberty point guard Natasha Cloud set the tone ahead of impending labor negotiations with the league: “We’re not f***ing around.”
Advertisement
They’ve historically shown they don’t. There’s no reason an All-Star Game would be any different. This is, as Kelsey Plum reminded on Friday, the same group that flipped the U.S. Senate in 2020. They advocated for the release of Brittney Griner from wrongful detainment in a Russian prison in 2022.
And on Saturday, in front of a sold-out Gainbridge Fieldhouse crowd and a city that came out in force to celebrate the weekend, the players packed a punch with yet another black T-shirt screaming their message clearly. It was a statement that “spoke for itself,” Team Clark All-Star Kelsey Mitchell said, and drove home the idea that players want a piece of the pie they help bake.
“We see the growth of the league,” All-Star Game MVP Napheesa Collier said. “And as it stands, the current salary system is not really paying us what we’re owed. And we want to be able to have that fair share moving forward.”
The crowd, also, was not messing around. It drowned out Commissioner Cathy Engelbert’s awarding of the MVP trophy with organic chants of “pay them.” As Brittney Sykes walked back and forth behind the scene, holding a black sign reading “Pay the players,” the crowd reacted as if watching a cartoon scene.
Advertisement
“It was a very powerful moment,” Plum said. “We didn’t, at least as players, we didn’t know that that was going to happen. So it was kind of a genuine surprise.”
It’s all too reminiscent of the U.S. women’s national soccer team suing its federation in 2019 and being met at the When players took the court ahead of Saturday’s game, fans roared as they recognized what they were reading in white script.
It’s a different labor environment than most men’s sports, and players understand that.
The WNBA, still yet to hit its 30th year, doesn’t pay the bloated contracts and multimillion-dollar annual deals that tick off the casual fan who misses the good ol’ days of playing for the love of the game. Many Americans make more money than Caitlin Clark, who is on a rookie-scale $78,066 contract. She side-stepped a request earlier in the night to compare her salary with her sponsorship deals.
Advertisement
“That’s where we’re really fortunate is that we have those other deals,” Clark said. “And I think that’s one of the things that we’re fighting for is we should be paid more, and hopefully that’s the case moving forward as the league continues to grow. I think that’s something, that’s probably the most important thing that we’re in the room advocating about.”
Mystics All-Star Brittney Sykes held up a sign sharing the players’ message during postgame festivities on Saturday night. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy)
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Cloud, a veteran WNBA champion, said that after winning the skills competition on Friday night, the $57,575 ($55,000 from Aflac’s sponsorship) would be set aside for a down payment on a house. She’s playing on a $200,000 contract, a significant number more than double the U.S. median household income.
But barely.
Advertisement
“We’re fighting for what we’re due, and what we’re worth. Our value,” Cloud said on Friday. “And they’re going to be fighting for what they think protects the business. And our job, again, is to find common ground. But that doesn’t mean that we keep taking the crumbs of the pie.”
The status of labor negotiations will always hinge on who one asks. WNBPA president Nneka Ogwumike, union leadership and players who attended Thursday’s meeting told reporters on Friday they were disappointed and frustrated at the lack of progress. Engelbert, in her annual pregame press conference less than an hour before the players’ arrival, described the talks as productive.
The players’ No. 1 priority is revenue sharing, which will, in turn, deliver higher salaries. They see it all around them. The entire weekend screams of the and fans of all teams packing the streets with bags of new gear. Much of it features player likeness. And when they head back to their home markets, they’re playing to record crowds in front of historic TV viewership.
“Just call it what it is,” Plum said on Friday. “The players are the draw, so I think the players should now take part in that revenue that they’re drawing.”
Engelbert said before the game it was “not accurate” that the league was unwilling to propose a revenue sharing system that allows player salaries to grow with the league.
Advertisement
“We already have a revenue sharing,” Engelbert said, “but we were in a very different place in 2020 than we are in 2025, so I think you’ll see the revenue sharing be a much more lucrative one as we go forward because we are in a better place, quite frankly.”
The revenue sharing agreement in dictates if the league’s cumulative revenue exceeds the cumulative revenue target for said season, then players will be paid 50% of the shared revenue per certain stipulations. There is no set number in the CBA, though it was reportedly out of reach in previous seasons. Neither side has described the proposals they’ve made, or what their revenue sharing ideas are.
“Based on what we saw and based on what we’re proposing, it’s two fundamentally different systems,” Ogwumike said after the game. “And one that leans more towards a fixed percentage is what the league is responding to us with and we want to have a better share of that where our salaries grow with the business and not just a fixed percentage over time.”
The public statements from players and fan reactions put pressure on the league as negotiations continue. It’s not new for players to utilize the fandom in real time. It is for them to do it with this much of the fandom so invested in their work.
Advertisement
Engelbert conceded on Saturday that there is no hard date in October to complete a CBA. The two sides extended the deadline in 2019 and agreed to a deal in mid-January 2020.
“If we’re in a good place, and we’re going back and forth and there’s a few remaining issues, we can extend dates here and there,” Engelbert said.
Extensions could complicate the league calendar. Incoming expansion teams Toronto Tempo and Portland Fire will need to complete an expansion draft, which was scheduled in December last year for the Golden State Valkyries. All 15 teams will engage in a potential landscape-altering free agency period, since nearly everyone not on a rookie contract is unrestricted. The WNBA draft follows in April, right after the national title game on April 5, before the likely start of the 2026 WNBA season.
Advertisement
Both sides said on Saturday they’re committed to finalizing a deal. The players delivered their counterpunch before heading out of town and found that their fans, new and old, met them where they were once again this weekend.
“First and foremost, the mission was accomplished because we built an incredible amount of awareness this weekend,” Plum said.
It’s been a winning strategy for them before.
