The WNBA's best players made a powerful statement before Saturday night's All-Star game when they put together a show of solidarity by wearing pregame warm-up shirts with one simple demand to the league: "Pay us what you owe us."

The message comes amid the players' union's ongoing collective bargaining agreement (CBA) negotiations with the WNBA, with their current CBA set to expire at the end of the season. Many on social media have shared mixed reactions to the blunt message, as some seem confused as to how the players could be demanding more money when the WNBA is still unprofitable in 2025.

Let's clear up one thing to start: the WNBA players are not lobbying for the same salaries as their NBA counterparts.

Instead, they are lobbying for a fairer percentage of the league's shared revenue. WNBA vet and Los Angeles Sparks star Kelsey Plum said it best back in 2022: "We’re not asking to get paid what the men get paid,” she said. “We’re asking to get paid the same percentage of revenue shared."

Over in the NBA, revenue (TV deals, ticket and merchandise sales, etc.) is split evenly between players and owners—players receive between 49% and 51% of basketball-related income.

In the WNBA, players reportedly only receive 9.3% of league revenue, per Market Watch. That single-digit percentage is much lower than what other athletes in professional sports leagues earn (NFL and NHL players also get roughly half of all revenue).

Timberwolves and Lynx beat reporter Andrew Dukowitz broke down the numbers to more precisely explain WNBA players' gripes toward the league. Here's the gist of Dukowitz's post on X (formerly known as Twitter):

"Now yes, the WNBA did lose 40 million dollars in 2024, but this is in large part due to the TV deal they are currently signed to, which in 2026 goes from roughly 45 Million annually to 200 Million annually.

This will result in essence result in the league making money over night from losing 40 to a net gain of 115M just on the TV deal alone. Even if the game and tickets sales were to stop growing, and merch stopped selling, it would still be in the green.

The current CBA would amount to players going from 1.507M in salary cap to just 4.0 M… a substantial raise however it would cost the league just 2.5 M out of that 115M TV deal profits.

If the players got 40%, that’s just 17.204M as a salary cap… a 11x raise over their current salaries, and still in the grand scheme of things less than 1 Jaden McDaniels(24.393M)"

Hope this helps!

More WNBA on Sports Illustrated


This article was originally published on www.si.com as Breaking Down WNBA Players’ CBA Demand After All-Star Game Shirts Go Viral.

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