At the 2025 WNBA All-Star game, the stars put on a t-shirt with a simple message.
Pay Us What You Owe Us!
A few weeks later, All-Star guard Kelsey Plum explained what this means:
“A lot of times, the misinformation comes in where we’re asking to be paid what the men are being paid. That’s not true. We’re asking just the same percentage of revenue or a similar percentage of revenue. And right now, that’s not the case. That’s what we’re fighting for.“
NBA players are promised about 50 percent of Basketball Related Income. Basketball Related Income includes revenue from ticket sales, broadcasting fees, and team sponsorships. However, it omits expansion fees. And the NBA takes 75 percent of revenue from luxury suites. As a result, it is estimated NBA players only receive about 40 percent of the league’s total revenue.
This was originally the target for the WNBA players. Unfortunately, in 2025, they were very far from that goal. According to an October article in the New York Times, WNBA players were paid less than 7 percent of total league revenue in 2025. Kelsey Plum is well aware of this math. In 2025, she was only paid $202,000 while the maximum salary in the WNBA was just $249,244.
This outcome is primarily due to the actions taken by the NBA. The WNBA is mostly owned by various NBA team owners. Currently, the NBA – which is collectively owned by the 30 owners of the NBA teams — owns 42 percent of the WNBA outright. Owners of individual WNBA teams – which includes some NBA team owners – also own 42 percent of the league. The remaining 16 percent is owned by various people (a list that also includes some NBA team owners). If you put it all together, the NBA team owners own more than 60 percent of the WNBA. And that means, ultimately, it is the owners of the NBA teams who have decided to pay Kelsey Plum and the other women of the WNBA so poorly.
To put this pay in perspective, let’s travel back to 1981. That was the year that Otis Birdsong became the first million-dollar guard in NBA history. Like Plum, Birdsong was a high draft pick who appeared in four All-Star games. Unlike Plum – who won two WNBA titles with the Las Vegas Aces, Birdsong never came close to an NBA title. Nevertheless, more than forty years ago, Birdsong was paid more than five times what Plum was paid in 2025. If we adjust for inflation, Birdsong was paid more than $3 million in the early 1980s, or more than 15 times what Plum saw last season.
One might think that relative to the WNBA today, Birdsong’s NBA was far more successful. The numbers tell a different story.
In 1981-82, the average attendance in the NBA was only 10,567 fans per game. We don’t know league revenue that season, but the next year, it has been estimated that NBA revenue was only $136.4 million. In 2025, Kelsey Plum played in a league that averaged close to 11,000 fans per game and likely had more than $300 million in revenue. So, Plum played in a bigger league than Birdsong (both in terms of attendance and nominal revenue) but saw less than 20 percent of Birdsong’s pay.
One should note that Birdsong played at a time when the NBA claimed players were receiving 57 percent of total league revenue. After decades of the NBA team owners winning labor negotiations with the players, that percentage has been reduced to about 40 percent. But even if Birdsong and his colleagues were only getting 40 percent of the NBA’s total revenue in the early 1980s, Birdsong would have seen many more dollars than Plum saw in 2025.
Given all this, it is understandable that the WNBA players are willing to go on strike to finally be paid “what they are owed”. Unfortunately for the players– given what we now know about the current state of the negotiations – WNBA players are now just asking for “closer to what you owe us!”
The current collective bargaining agreement between the WNBA players and the league expires on January 9th, 2026. Both parties have now exchanged visions of what a future deal should look like. According to a source close to the negotiations, here are the offers each side is making.
The NBA is proposing a 50 percent split of “net” WNBA revenue. What is meant by “net” revenue? Before the NBA makes a 50-50 split of WNBA revenue with the WNBA players, multiple expenses get paid first. Or to put it differently, the NBA proposes a system where the players get paid last. As a result, it is estimated by sources close to these negotiations that the WNBA players will receive less than 15 percent of total revenue. Once again, it was estimated that the WNBA players only received about 7 percent of the 2025 WNBA revenue in salaries. So, the NBA’s offer is a step forward. But this offer means the NBA owners wish to continue the very large gender-wage gap we see in professional basketball.
The WNBA’s player association’s counteroffer is quite a bit simpler. Sources close to the negotiations say that the union proposes the WNBA player receive 29 percent of total league revenue next year. That percentage will increase by 1 percent each year until reaching 34 percent in 2031.
Obviously, this percentage is less than what the men of the NBA are currently receiving. Furthermore, a source close to the negotiations says WNBA players are proposing that the revenue numbers used come from the previous season. The percentage of revenue the NBA players are promised comes from current season revenues, which must be projected before the season begins. What the WNBA players are proposing does further simplify the process since it means the WNBA doesn’t have to project revenue. But because the WNBA’s revenues tend to grow each year, basing pay on last year’s numbers means the WNBA players (again, relative to NBA players) are getting a smaller percentage of a smaller pool of money.
Now that we see the two offers, how much money separates the two sides? The answer to that question depends on how much revenue the WNBA expects to have. Fortunately, the NBA’s offer includes enough information for us to see the NBA’s estimate of what the WNBA will earn from 2026 to 2030.
Remember, it is argued that the NBA is offering less than 15 percent of total or gross revenue. Let’s say that percentage is 14 percent (a source close to the negotiations says it is actually a bit less than that!). It has been reported that the average salary under the NBA’s offer is at least $530,000. If there are 180 players in the WNBA in 2026 (15 teams with 12 players on each squad), then, according to the NBA’s proposal, the WNBA players are going to see $95.4 million in salaries. If this is 14 percent of total or gross revenue, then gross revenue must be $680 million. Once again, it was reported that revenue in 2025 was only about $300 million. So, clearly, the NBA expects WNBA revenue to increase dramatically.
Those familiar with the WNBA know the league will receive substantial revenues in 2026 from the NBA-WNBA broadcasting deal signed in 2024. The WNBA has also seen more than $1 billion in expansion fees paid to the league as it expands from twelve teams in 2024 to eighteen teams by the end of the decade. It has been argued that the broadcasting deal substantially undervalued the media rights of the WNBA and hence transferred billions of dollars to the NBA. And like the NBA, expansion fees in the WNBA are not shared with the WNBA players. Despite all this, the NBA still expects the revenues it recognizes for the WNBA to be much higher. Of course, there are likely billions in revenues the NBA is receiving from the WNBA (i.e., missing broadcasting revenues and expansion fees) that are not part of these negotiations at all.
Despite all the NBA seems to do to depress WNBA revenue, the revenue pool being discussed in these negotiations is still growing rapidly. In fact, the WNBA is growing much faster than the NBA’s historic pace. Next season will be the WNBA’s 30th season. If we adjust the NBA’s $136.4 million in revenue in 1982-83 for inflation, we see the NBA was earning less than $500 million in its 37th season (the league started playing in 1946). The WNBA – relative to the NBA’s own history – is doing amazingly well.
The NBA also seems to expect the WNBA’s rapid growth to continue. The NBA’s proposal says that the WNBA’s average salary will increase to $780,000 by 2030. If the WNBA players are still receiving about 14 percent of league revenue that season, then the players will be paid about $168 million in salaries and benefits. If that is 14 percent of total or gross revenues, then the NBA believes WNBA revenue – in the league’s 34th season – will be about $1.2 billion. Again, that is amazing when we consider NBA history. If we adjust NBA revenue for inflation, it is likely the league doesn’t see a billion in revenue until around its 40th season (the 1985-86 season). At that time, Magic Johnson’s salary – adjusted for inflation — was nearly $7.5 million. The NBA proposes, though, that the top salary in the WNBA, when it reaches $1 billion in revenue, will be only $2 million.
Sources close to the negotiations say the union is currently not specifying a maximum wage in their offer. But again, they are asking for about 30 percent of the total or gross revenue. If that happens, then the average wage for WNBA players in 2026 would be about $1 million. And in 2030, when revenue tops the $1 billion mark, and the players are asking for 33 percent of that total, the average wage will be about $1.8 million.
So, for the average player, the difference in the average wage between the NBA proposal and the WNBA player proposal is more than $500,000 in 2026. Four years later, the difference in the two proposals is nearly $1 million per player on average.
What about a player like Kelsey Plum? Plum is an above-average player but was not paid the WNBA maximum this past season. Following the same methodology employed in the New York Times in October, it is estimated that Plum would be paid about $880,000 according to the NBA’s offer of 14 percent of the total revenue. Yes, that is less than Otis Birdsong more than 40 years ago. According to the player’s counter proposal, Plum’s wage rises to more than $1.7 million. So, for Plum, the difference in the two offers is nearly $900,000 in 2026.
If we repeat the same exercise for Plum with the revenue expected in 2030, Plum’s wage moves from $1.2 million (if the NBA’s offer holds) to $2.8 million according to the player’s proposal. If we consider all the years from 2026 to 2030, Plum’s pay is more than $5.5 million different when we compare the NBA’s revenue split to the player’s proposed split.
That’s a substantial difference for Plum. It is important to remember that as Plum fights for this $5.5 million, she has already made a substantial concession. Remember, the players have already agreed to accept less than the 40 percent split the men are getting. If we compare what the WNBA players are proposing to what they would get if the NBA truly paid the women like they pay the men, then Plum (if she agrees with the current WNBA players’ stance) has already agreed to take $3.5 million less from 2026 to 2030 (assuming she plays that long).
If we look at all players, the difference in offers is truly staggering. Let’s start with the move from a 40 percent split (i.e., the deal for the NBA’s men) to the 30 percent split (essentially what the WNBA players are asking). If we look at all players from 2026 to 2030, we see – given what we now see is being projected for WNBA revenues – that the WNBA players have already given up more than $450 million in salaries and benefits from 2026 to 2030. That is quite the concession.
And if the players were to accept the NBA’s offer of 14 percent of revenue, then they would be giving up about $700 million more. Oddly enough, the NBA claims that if the players do not concede this additional $700 million in salaries, the league will be losing – across the length of this deal — $700 million. Yes, that’s how the math works out. If the WNBA players get 30 percent of the total or gross revenue, the NBA claims the WNBA loses essentially the same amount of money as the additional money the players are currently demanding.
And that means the NBA is claiming that if the players are paid less than 15 percent of the WNBA’s gross revenue, the WNBA will only break even. The NBA team owners have extracted more than one billion in expansion fees. We are now to believe that these new WNBA owners are anxious to be part of a business that won’t make a profit with the NBA’s current offer.
One should also note that in the entire history of the NBA, the men have never received less than 15 percent of league revenue. The NBA, though, claims that if the women don’t take an offer that was never given to the men, the WNBA will just barely survive.
Again, this is just how the math works. And we should all be a bit skeptical about the story the NBA’s math is telling us.
We should add that the NBA also wishes to expand the length of the WNBA season. So, not only do the NBA owners want the players to give them $700 million, but they also want the players to work more for what they are receiving.
In the end, the WNBA’s players have already agreed that they will accept less than what they are owed. The math says that, because the WNBA players are no longer asking for 40 percent of total revenue (like the men of the NBA), the WNBA players have already agreed to give the WNBA $450 million across the next five seasons. In addition, the players are willing to let the WNBA owners keep the more than $1 billion in expansion fees.
All of these concessions should have led us to an agreement. The players demanded they be “paid what they are owed” and they are now settling for “closer to what they are owed”. This means if the NBA team owners accept the player’s offer, they will once again — as they have done for fifty years in negotiation with the men of the NBA – win another labor dispute.
That win means the gender-wage gap will definitely continue. Perhaps it is time for the NBA team owners to accept victory as the answer and make sure the first strike in WNBA history never happens.
