October 31, 2025 • 20 mins
The WNBA is bigger than ever. From soaring ticket sales and to record TV viewership, the W is one of the fastest-growing sports leagues in the world. But since last year, the WNBA and its players’ union have been in tense negotiations over the cut that players get from that success. A deadline to reach a deal has been extended another 30 days, but the sticking points remain.
On today’s Big Take Podcast, Bloomberg reporter Jennah Haque, Good Game host Sarah Spain and Seattle Storm Guard Lexie Brown break down the state of play, from proposals on the table for revenue sharing to questions about the league’s financial picture.
Read more:
Further listening:
- Good Game with Sarah Spain
- Full Circle with Lexie Brown & Mariah Rose—Power to the Players
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news, twenty eight.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Years in the Banking to New York Liberty WNBA champions.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
On October twentieth of last year, the New York Liberty
faced off against the Minnesota Links in the WNBA Finals.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
The original franchise has its very first title.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
It was an historic night. The Liberty won its first
ever WNBA championship, marking the end of a remarkable season
for the team and for the league. In twenty twenty four,
attendance at WNBA games was up nearly fifty percent from
the previous year, its highest in more than two decades.
Televised games attracted tens of millions of viewers over the
(00:55):
course of the season. More than a million people tuned
in to see the Liberty claim their first title. The
next day, the WNBPA, the union representing the league's players,
posted a video on x with a clear message.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
The WNBA you know if you want us to be here,
you have to pay us more.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
It was an announcement the players union was opting out
of its existing contract with the league. The union agreed
to keep the contract's terms through the end of the
twenty twenty five season, while both parties negotiated new terms,
but today October thirty, first, twenty twenty five, the clock
on those negotiations runs out.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
One of my favorite things is that it's on Halloween.
It feels very spooky season.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Sarah Spain has been covering the WNBA for ESPN for
more than a decade. She's also the host of the
women's sports podcast Good Game with Sarah Spain. Yesterday, instead
of reaching a deal, the league and the players union
announced a thirty day extension, saying they'd continue negotiations through
the month of November with a caveat. The union maintains
the right to terminate the extension at any time with
(01:59):
forty eight hours notice. How would you characterize the quality
of the conversations the negotiations that have taken place so.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
Far U acrimonious.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Acrimonious in part because there's a lot at stake.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Less than a handful of WNBA veterans are under contract
for next year. Almost every single player not tied to
a rookie contract has elected to have their contract end
with this season, and really, what's at the center of it,
at the biggest, most important level, is a desire for
the players to get a revenue share.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Lexi Brown is a guard for the Seattle Storm. She's
not a free agent, but after eight seasons in the league,
she's asking for a bigger piece of the pie.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
We're asking for the share of something that we've built,
something that we've created.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Lexi says she's seen huge improvements for players on and
off the court since she started, but she says the
growing popularity of the game has made her realize how
undervalued the players have been.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
It's like being like in a relationship with the toxic
man and then you find the good man. You're like, oh,
this is what it feels like. And I feel like
Vegas and New York and Seattle have been three of
the organizations that have finally had ownership groups that are
making all of us feel respected, valued and really investing
in us. Just understanding how undervalued we've been for so
(03:24):
many years. And I think for most of us that's
really the principle of showing us that you value us
as players and value the product that we put out
every season.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
I'm David Gera, and this is the big take from
Bloomberg News today. On the show, at the negotiating Table
with the WNBA and the WNBPA what the players want,
what the league wants, and what's on the line for
one of the fastest growing sports leagues in the world
if they can't make a deal. The WNBA started nearly
(04:03):
thirty years ago in nineteen ninety seven. It was a
pivotal moment in women's sports. Many of the players that
first season had just won a gold medal for Team
USA at the nineteen ninety six Olympics in Atlanta. To
even qualify for the team, they had to spend the
year leading up to the games traveling the world, leaving
existing careers and taking pay cuts to play in small
(04:24):
arenas and local gyms, part of then NBA commissioner David
Stearn's plan to drum up interest in women's basketball players
nicknamed it the WNBA Test Balloon. Decades later, that balloon
is floating higher than ever. Players like Caitlin Clark, Breonna Stewart,
Paige Becker's, and Angel Reese have become household names standard
(04:45):
metrics of success. TV viewership, game attendance valuations, and ticket
sales have soared all except for one player pay, specifically
a share of the revenue. In twenty twenty five, base
pay for WNBA players range from about sixty six thousand
dollars to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. NBA players
(05:06):
play roughly twice as many games, but their annual salary
is significantly higher, anywhere from about one point two million
dollars to fifty six million dollars. At this year's WNBA
All Star Game, players wore t shirts that read, pay
us what you owe us. It was a big statement.
Here's ESPN reporter and Good Game host Sarah Spain.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
So right now they're getting less than ten percent of
the WNBA revenue compared to about fifty percent that NBA
players get.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
And at the crux of.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
It is, the league side wants them to get higher salaries,
but they want their revenue to be affected by certain
stipulations a predetermined rate, whereas the players want their revenue
to go up, their salary cap to go up, all
of those things to be dependent on growth along with
the revenue that they're creating for the league.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
I want to dig into the revenue sharing piece of
this a bit more. And you brought up the contrast
between the WNBA and the NBA, so can you spell
that out a bit more explicitly, well.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
We'll give you the extremes.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
So, as of the most recent report, Steph Curry is
the highest paid NBA player place for the Warriors, and
Jackie Young is one of the highest paid WNBA and
Steph Curry makes two hundred and thirty times as much
money as Jackie Young. There was a great op ed
(06:27):
in The New York Times by Nobel Prize winning economist
Claudia Golden, and these are her numbers. And one of
the very tricky things about discussing this issue is that
there is such a lack of financial transparency from the
NBAWNBA league side, so everyone is sort of estimating at
revenue profit.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
Everything else cost.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
But according to Claudia Golden's numbers, based on game attendance,
TV viewership, all the other stuff, WNBA players should make
somewhere around a quarter of what NBA players are making,
and they're making an eightieth.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
That's partly because WNBA base salaries are lower, but another
factor is that the NBA and the WNBA have really
different approaches when it comes to the way they pay
their players. What's essentially a bonus. That's something Bloomberg Data
visualization reporter Jenna Hawk has spent years looking.
Speaker 5 (07:19):
Into So the NBA looks at everything in terms of
basketball related income. So basically, anything that is brought in
their media rights deals, concessions sold at games, ticket sales,
corporate sponsorships, merchandise, it's all under one pot. And within
that large pot they basically split it up and fifty
(07:41):
one percent between fifty to fifty one percent goes directly
to players. The rest goes to the league, the owners,
et cetera.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
The WNBA, on the other hand, when it.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
Comes to revenue sharing, only league revenue is up for sharing.
So the current collective Bargaining Agreement technically already has a
revenue sharing provision, but unfortunately, because of really strict requirements
that have been outlined in that CBA and because of
really difficult thresholds that the league has to meet, the
revenue sharing has never actually kicked in for the players.
(08:13):
So even though it's been outlined in this CBA since
twenty twenty, players haven't actually seen a dime of that
money go into their paychecks.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Jenna says those requirements are difficult to meet. The league
has to increase its revenue by twenty percent for two
consecutive years in order for the players to claim a share.
Speaker 5 (08:33):
And so if you miss your target one year, the
following year you have to make up for all that
lost money and again meet your twenty percent goal for
that year. So you can imagine whethering a pandemic, there's
some lost money on the table. So the kind of
growth targets have then become much higher for the league.
After you meet all these cumulative targets, only about seventeen
(08:55):
point five percent of the final area that's up for
grabs will actually go to players. And so we kind
of calculated a couple of years ago how much would
players actually receive. Well, when you actually split it up,
give the players the portion that they are owned, give
the league what they're owned. There's another provision called the
(09:16):
cost of doing revenue. So if you start out with
an excess of two million dollars and the union opts
to split all of these funds kind of equally, players
would basically only get a two thousand dollars four hundred
one time bonus.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Here's Seattle Storm player Lexi Brown.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
The WNBA takes care of our housing. You know, if
you don't have a car and market, they take care
of that. They do supplement a lot of expenses for us.
Despite these really low salaries, I do think like we're
super underpaid for what we do on the daily and
the expectations they have for us. I remember, I think
I made forty grand my rookie year, the season I
(09:57):
got waves and only played half the year. I think
I only made like fifteen twenty thousand dollars playing, and
I want a championship that year.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
When it comes to the current contract negotiations, Lexi pointed
out the league is offering them higher base salaries, but
what it doesn't want to budge on is the revenue
share structure.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
You do have some players who are looking at these
new numbers and they're like that looks pretty good to me,
Like what's the big deal. And then you also have
just other players like it's the principle of what's going
on here, Like they are not allowing us to also
grow with this business that we are helping grow.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
The league argues that while it's rapidly growing, it still
isn't profitable. Getting a look at those finances can be
tricky because the WNBA is a private company.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
So they don't actually have to disclose how much money
that they're making every single year, whether they're churning a profit.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
In twenty twenty three, though, Jenna got her hands on
some official WNBA documents which helped give her a picture
of the league's finances.
Speaker 5 (10:55):
From the end of fiscal year twenty nineteen, the league
had brought in around fifty one point eight million dollars.
In twenty twenty four, the league brought in over one
hundred and forty four million dollars, so it's one hundred
seventy seven percent jump.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Even so, Jenna says, we can't definitely say whether or
not the WNBA is profitable.
Speaker 5 (11:14):
Some of those numbers still are a little murky to
us because of these complicated accounting structures. It also kind
of depends on owners that you ask. There's a lot
of NBA owners who also have tie ups in the
WNBA that claim they're losing lots of money. Other owners
will tell you it doesn't look like that if you
take into account the larger picture. So we can't say
(11:35):
definitively whether the WNBA is like truly making money yet.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
The WNBA did not respond to questions about its profitability.
But when it comes to the revenue shared deal on
the table. A league spokesperson told us it offered players
quote a revenue sharing component that would result in the
player's compensation increasing as league revenue increases without any cap.
On the upside, that revenue shared deal would only go
into effect if certain requirements were met, like the current contract,
(12:03):
and the question of profit how much or how little
the league is making, sits at the center of these negotiations.
What is eating so much into the WNBA's profits.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
Wouldn't we all like to know?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Wouldn't we all like for them to tell us this
is a league that starts an eleven year two point
two billion dollar right steal next year and has a
series of lesser value media right steals and has record merchandise, attendance, viewership,
everything else. So the idea that the argument would be
the same decades later, which is that it's still on
(12:36):
the players to really settle for scraps as they try
to build this league, as opposed to seeing the player's
percentage and salaries go up along with the growth of
the league.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
Is I think, what's so frustrating.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Coming up after the break, how the WNBA's dizzying ownership
structure complicates the picture, and what could make the two
sides come to a deal. The WNBA and the wnbpas
(13:13):
spooky Halloween deadline is here, and instead of reaching a deal,
the two sides have agreed to extend their talks for
another thirty days, with the condition that the players may
terminate the extension at any time with forty eight hours notice.
A source familiar with the situation said the league will
have the option to terminate it as well. There's no
shortage of competing factors at play in these negotiations, but
(13:35):
ESPN Sarah Spain says a significant one is the league's
financial picture, made even more complicated by its ownership structure.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
So the WNBA has forty two percent, the NBA has
forty two percent, and then there's a sixteen percent that
was sold in twenty twenty two to a variety of investors.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
At the time of the twenty twenty two deal, that
sixteen percent was sold off for seventy five million dollars,
which would have valued the whole league at around four
hundred and seventy million dollars.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Three years later, one team, the New York Liberty, was
valued at close to that number on its own.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
You have a league that is estimated to be worth.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Billions in the next couple years, and you sold off
sixteen percent of it for just seventy five million dollars.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Here's Bloomberg reporter Jenna Hawk.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
There's almost two camps on how people view this. There's
the one camp, which is like, this was the biggest
amount of investment into women's sports in the history of
all time at that point, and you had all these
really big names declaring their support and earmarking their money
directly for women's sports, really big names like Condolleza, Rice Michael,
(14:46):
and Susan Dell, Loreene Powell jobs. On the other hand,
you have other people being like, well, if women's sports
and the WNBA as a league is on the precipice
of this really big moment, and we know that the
growth is coming, why dilute the shares? And that has
kind of been lurking for years now, especially as you
(15:09):
kind of shore up these big media rights deals, especially
as you talk about this collective bargaining agreement negotiations. It's
all kind of like, Okay, well, was this a good
business move and did this bring more eyes to the
game or did we make a bad move here?
Speaker 3 (15:25):
From where I sit. I hear a lot of investors
talking a pretty good game about women's sports. They celebrate
it and support it. What role are they playing in
these negotiations, those who've invested in this league. Are they
being outspoken about what's going on here?
Speaker 4 (15:37):
No, and that's what's fascinating.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
So we had a WNBPA lawyer on my show Good
Game with Sarah Spain, and one of the things that
she talked about that really could push these negotiations, could
move the needle publicly, is if the folks who invested,
believing that they were both making a great business decision
but also supporting the players and the teams that they
care about, they spoke out and said, why isn't the
(16:01):
money that we put in getting to the players, Why
is it just enriching these other folks.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
That would really change the conversation, I think.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Sarah says. So far, WNBA team owners haven't really spoken
out either, But they aren't monolithic. They approach this from
a variety of perspectives.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Some of them are invested in what it means to
support and invest in women's sports, and some of them
have just been told that it's a great place to invest.
With a lot of upside, and they're aligning more with
the side that I think is trying to make the
money without spending it.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
But Bloomberg's Jenna Hawk says it may be too early
for those owners to judge the return on their investment.
Speaker 5 (16:42):
At what point in a league should you actually be
talking about profitability. The NBA is decades older than the WNBA.
It took them many many years to churn a profit.
There's still plenty of different sports leagues that are decades
years old and they're not churning a profit. I think
all of these questions about how much money are they
(17:03):
bringing in, when should they be making money for their owners?
It's all kind of gotten into a question, well, if
you're in a period of major growth, are you supposed
to be seeing profit?
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Yet all this comes down to whether the players trust
the league's leadership to appropriately value their worth, and the
relationship between the league and its players union has only
deteriorated as the negotiations have dragged on, with the players
union and the league publicly sparring for weeks now over
everything from the value of its media deals to the
(17:32):
leadership of the league's commissioner, Kathy Engelbert.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
You look at NAFISA Collier's statement during her exit interview
for the Minnesota Links, talking about private conversations she had,
she told me players should be on their knees thanking
they're lucky stars for the media right steal that I
got them.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Before the first game of the WNBA Finals, the commissioner
responded to the FISA Collier's statement and if the.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Players in the w don't feel appreciated and valued by
the league, then we have to do better, and I
have to do better.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
In the week since the back and forth has continued,
here's Lexi Brown again.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Early in negotiations, it was very much we're gonna, you know,
we're gonna keep this in house, like basically like keep
it cute. And then I think just things just weren't
going the way we expected it to. Considering the explosion
of the WNBA in the last few years, I think
it kind of caught everybody off guard that the league
(18:24):
was just kind of like, yeah, like we're doing amazing,
y'all are doing amazing, but like we still want to
like keep y'all in this little corner over here that
we've had y'all in for the last twenty five years.
So slowly and slowly and slowly, we've kind of brought
it more out to the public.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Now the players in the league have thirty more days
to try to see eye to eye. In a statement,
the WNBPA said, quote, while we believe negotiations would be
further along, the players are more focused, united, and determined
than ever to reach an agreement that reflects their value
and undeniable impact on the league. The WNBA says it
stands ready to continue negotiations, adding it hopes the union
(19:02):
does the same so that both parties can quote finalize
a mutually beneficial new CBA as quickly as possible. Lexi
Brown so she hopes to find a way to work
with the league and stay on good terms with leadership.
One day she could see herself being one of them.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
I can just speak for myself, like, I do want
to work in front office one day, whether that's in
the league or for a team, And I feel like
the best way to help grow the league when you're
done is to be a part of the higher ups.
So that's something that I've always dreamt of doing, as
being on the other side of the table in these negotiations.
Having a player's perspective. I feel like it could be
(19:39):
super beneficial.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gerrat.
The show is hosted by me Wanha and Sarah Holder.
The show is made by Aaron Edwards, David Fox, Eleanor
Harrison Dengate, Patti Hirsch, Rachel Lewis, Krisky, Naomi Julia Press,
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and Taka Yasuzawa. To get more from the Big Take
(20:03):
and unlimited access to all of Bloomberg dot com, subscribe
today at Bloomberg dot com Slash Podcast offer. Thanks for listening.
We'll be back on Monday.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Thank you much
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news, twenty eight.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Years in the Banking to New York Liberty WNBA champions.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
On October twentieth of last year, the New York Liberty
faced off against the Minnesota Links in the WNBA Finals.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
The original franchise has its very first title.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
It was an historic night. The Liberty won its first
ever WNBA championship, marking the end of a remarkable season
for the team and for the league. In twenty twenty four,
attendance at WNBA games was up nearly fifty percent from
the previous year, its highest in more than two decades.
Televised games attracted tens of millions of viewers over the
(00:55):
course of the season. More than a million people tuned
in to see the Liberty claim their first title. The
next day, the WNBPA, the union representing the league's players,
posted a video on x with a clear message.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
The WNBA you know if you want us to be here,
you have to pay us more.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
It was an announcement the players union was opting out
of its existing contract with the league. The union agreed
to keep the contract's terms through the end of the
twenty twenty five season, while both parties negotiated new terms,
but today October thirty, first, twenty twenty five, the clock
on those negotiations runs out.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
One of my favorite things is that it's on Halloween.
It feels very spooky season.
Speaker 3 (01:37):
Sarah Spain has been covering the WNBA for ESPN for
more than a decade. She's also the host of the
women's sports podcast Good Game with Sarah Spain. Yesterday, instead
of reaching a deal, the league and the players union
announced a thirty day extension, saying they'd continue negotiations through
the month of November with a caveat. The union maintains
the right to terminate the extension at any time with
(01:59):
forty eight hours notice. How would you characterize the quality
of the conversations the negotiations that have taken place so.
Speaker 4 (02:06):
Far U acrimonious.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Acrimonious in part because there's a lot at stake.
Speaker 2 (02:15):
Less than a handful of WNBA veterans are under contract
for next year. Almost every single player not tied to
a rookie contract has elected to have their contract end
with this season, and really, what's at the center of it,
at the biggest, most important level, is a desire for
the players to get a revenue share.
Speaker 3 (02:35):
Lexi Brown is a guard for the Seattle Storm. She's
not a free agent, but after eight seasons in the league,
she's asking for a bigger piece of the pie.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
We're asking for the share of something that we've built,
something that we've created.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Lexi says she's seen huge improvements for players on and
off the court since she started, but she says the
growing popularity of the game has made her realize how
undervalued the players have been.
Speaker 1 (03:00):
It's like being like in a relationship with the toxic
man and then you find the good man. You're like, oh,
this is what it feels like. And I feel like
Vegas and New York and Seattle have been three of
the organizations that have finally had ownership groups that are
making all of us feel respected, valued and really investing
in us. Just understanding how undervalued we've been for so
(03:24):
many years. And I think for most of us that's
really the principle of showing us that you value us
as players and value the product that we put out
every season.
Speaker 3 (03:38):
I'm David Gera, and this is the big take from
Bloomberg News today. On the show, at the negotiating Table
with the WNBA and the WNBPA what the players want,
what the league wants, and what's on the line for
one of the fastest growing sports leagues in the world
if they can't make a deal. The WNBA started nearly
(04:03):
thirty years ago in nineteen ninety seven. It was a
pivotal moment in women's sports. Many of the players that
first season had just won a gold medal for Team
USA at the nineteen ninety six Olympics in Atlanta. To
even qualify for the team, they had to spend the
year leading up to the games traveling the world, leaving
existing careers and taking pay cuts to play in small
(04:24):
arenas and local gyms, part of then NBA commissioner David
Stearn's plan to drum up interest in women's basketball players
nicknamed it the WNBA Test Balloon. Decades later, that balloon
is floating higher than ever. Players like Caitlin Clark, Breonna Stewart,
Paige Becker's, and Angel Reese have become household names standard
(04:45):
metrics of success. TV viewership, game attendance valuations, and ticket
sales have soared all except for one player pay, specifically
a share of the revenue. In twenty twenty five, base
pay for WNBA players range from about sixty six thousand
dollars to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. NBA players
(05:06):
play roughly twice as many games, but their annual salary
is significantly higher, anywhere from about one point two million
dollars to fifty six million dollars. At this year's WNBA
All Star Game, players wore t shirts that read, pay
us what you owe us. It was a big statement.
Here's ESPN reporter and Good Game host Sarah Spain.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
So right now they're getting less than ten percent of
the WNBA revenue compared to about fifty percent that NBA
players get.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
And at the crux of.
Speaker 2 (05:38):
It is, the league side wants them to get higher salaries,
but they want their revenue to be affected by certain
stipulations a predetermined rate, whereas the players want their revenue
to go up, their salary cap to go up, all
of those things to be dependent on growth along with
the revenue that they're creating for the league.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
I want to dig into the revenue sharing piece of
this a bit more. And you brought up the contrast
between the WNBA and the NBA, so can you spell
that out a bit more explicitly, well.
Speaker 4 (06:06):
We'll give you the extremes.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
So, as of the most recent report, Steph Curry is
the highest paid NBA player place for the Warriors, and
Jackie Young is one of the highest paid WNBA and
Steph Curry makes two hundred and thirty times as much
money as Jackie Young. There was a great op ed
(06:27):
in The New York Times by Nobel Prize winning economist
Claudia Golden, and these are her numbers. And one of
the very tricky things about discussing this issue is that
there is such a lack of financial transparency from the
NBAWNBA league side, so everyone is sort of estimating at
revenue profit.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
Everything else cost.
Speaker 2 (06:46):
But according to Claudia Golden's numbers, based on game attendance,
TV viewership, all the other stuff, WNBA players should make
somewhere around a quarter of what NBA players are making,
and they're making an eightieth.
Speaker 3 (07:02):
That's partly because WNBA base salaries are lower, but another
factor is that the NBA and the WNBA have really
different approaches when it comes to the way they pay
their players. What's essentially a bonus. That's something Bloomberg Data
visualization reporter Jenna Hawk has spent years looking.
Speaker 5 (07:19):
Into So the NBA looks at everything in terms of
basketball related income. So basically, anything that is brought in
their media rights deals, concessions sold at games, ticket sales,
corporate sponsorships, merchandise, it's all under one pot. And within
that large pot they basically split it up and fifty
(07:41):
one percent between fifty to fifty one percent goes directly
to players. The rest goes to the league, the owners,
et cetera.
Speaker 3 (07:48):
The WNBA, on the other hand, when it.
Speaker 5 (07:50):
Comes to revenue sharing, only league revenue is up for sharing.
So the current collective Bargaining Agreement technically already has a
revenue sharing provision, but unfortunately, because of really strict requirements
that have been outlined in that CBA and because of
really difficult thresholds that the league has to meet, the
revenue sharing has never actually kicked in for the players.
(08:13):
So even though it's been outlined in this CBA since
twenty twenty, players haven't actually seen a dime of that
money go into their paychecks.
Speaker 3 (08:23):
Jenna says those requirements are difficult to meet. The league
has to increase its revenue by twenty percent for two
consecutive years in order for the players to claim a share.
Speaker 5 (08:33):
And so if you miss your target one year, the
following year you have to make up for all that
lost money and again meet your twenty percent goal for
that year. So you can imagine whethering a pandemic, there's
some lost money on the table. So the kind of
growth targets have then become much higher for the league.
After you meet all these cumulative targets, only about seventeen
(08:55):
point five percent of the final area that's up for
grabs will actually go to players. And so we kind
of calculated a couple of years ago how much would
players actually receive. Well, when you actually split it up,
give the players the portion that they are owned, give
the league what they're owned. There's another provision called the
(09:16):
cost of doing revenue. So if you start out with
an excess of two million dollars and the union opts
to split all of these funds kind of equally, players
would basically only get a two thousand dollars four hundred
one time bonus.
Speaker 3 (09:33):
Here's Seattle Storm player Lexi Brown.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
The WNBA takes care of our housing. You know, if
you don't have a car and market, they take care
of that. They do supplement a lot of expenses for us.
Despite these really low salaries, I do think like we're
super underpaid for what we do on the daily and
the expectations they have for us. I remember, I think
I made forty grand my rookie year, the season I
(09:57):
got waves and only played half the year. I think
I only made like fifteen twenty thousand dollars playing, and
I want a championship that year.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
When it comes to the current contract negotiations, Lexi pointed
out the league is offering them higher base salaries, but
what it doesn't want to budge on is the revenue
share structure.
Speaker 1 (10:15):
You do have some players who are looking at these
new numbers and they're like that looks pretty good to me,
Like what's the big deal. And then you also have
just other players like it's the principle of what's going
on here, Like they are not allowing us to also
grow with this business that we are helping grow.
Speaker 3 (10:31):
The league argues that while it's rapidly growing, it still
isn't profitable. Getting a look at those finances can be
tricky because the WNBA is a private company.
Speaker 5 (10:41):
So they don't actually have to disclose how much money
that they're making every single year, whether they're churning a profit.
Speaker 3 (10:47):
In twenty twenty three, though, Jenna got her hands on
some official WNBA documents which helped give her a picture
of the league's finances.
Speaker 5 (10:55):
From the end of fiscal year twenty nineteen, the league
had brought in around fifty one point eight million dollars.
In twenty twenty four, the league brought in over one
hundred and forty four million dollars, so it's one hundred
seventy seven percent jump.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
Even so, Jenna says, we can't definitely say whether or
not the WNBA is profitable.
Speaker 5 (11:14):
Some of those numbers still are a little murky to
us because of these complicated accounting structures. It also kind
of depends on owners that you ask. There's a lot
of NBA owners who also have tie ups in the
WNBA that claim they're losing lots of money. Other owners
will tell you it doesn't look like that if you
take into account the larger picture. So we can't say
(11:35):
definitively whether the WNBA is like truly making money yet.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
The WNBA did not respond to questions about its profitability.
But when it comes to the revenue shared deal on
the table. A league spokesperson told us it offered players
quote a revenue sharing component that would result in the
player's compensation increasing as league revenue increases without any cap.
On the upside, that revenue shared deal would only go
into effect if certain requirements were met, like the current contract,
(12:03):
and the question of profit how much or how little
the league is making, sits at the center of these negotiations.
What is eating so much into the WNBA's profits.
Speaker 4 (12:12):
Wouldn't we all like to know?
Speaker 2 (12:14):
Wouldn't we all like for them to tell us this
is a league that starts an eleven year two point
two billion dollar right steal next year and has a
series of lesser value media right steals and has record merchandise, attendance, viewership,
everything else. So the idea that the argument would be
the same decades later, which is that it's still on
(12:36):
the players to really settle for scraps as they try
to build this league, as opposed to seeing the player's
percentage and salaries go up along with the growth of
the league.
Speaker 4 (12:48):
Is I think, what's so frustrating.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Coming up after the break, how the WNBA's dizzying ownership
structure complicates the picture, and what could make the two
sides come to a deal. The WNBA and the wnbpas
(13:13):
spooky Halloween deadline is here, and instead of reaching a deal,
the two sides have agreed to extend their talks for
another thirty days, with the condition that the players may
terminate the extension at any time with forty eight hours notice.
A source familiar with the situation said the league will
have the option to terminate it as well. There's no
shortage of competing factors at play in these negotiations, but
(13:35):
ESPN Sarah Spain says a significant one is the league's
financial picture, made even more complicated by its ownership structure.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
So the WNBA has forty two percent, the NBA has
forty two percent, and then there's a sixteen percent that
was sold in twenty twenty two to a variety of investors.
Speaker 3 (13:53):
At the time of the twenty twenty two deal, that
sixteen percent was sold off for seventy five million dollars,
which would have valued the whole league at around four
hundred and seventy million dollars.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Three years later, one team, the New York Liberty, was
valued at close to that number on its own.
Speaker 4 (14:11):
You have a league that is estimated to be worth.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
Billions in the next couple years, and you sold off
sixteen percent of it for just seventy five million dollars.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
Here's Bloomberg reporter Jenna Hawk.
Speaker 5 (14:22):
There's almost two camps on how people view this. There's
the one camp, which is like, this was the biggest
amount of investment into women's sports in the history of
all time at that point, and you had all these
really big names declaring their support and earmarking their money
directly for women's sports, really big names like Condolleza, Rice Michael,
(14:46):
and Susan Dell, Loreene Powell jobs. On the other hand,
you have other people being like, well, if women's sports
and the WNBA as a league is on the precipice
of this really big moment, and we know that the
growth is coming, why dilute the shares? And that has
kind of been lurking for years now, especially as you
(15:09):
kind of shore up these big media rights deals, especially
as you talk about this collective bargaining agreement negotiations. It's
all kind of like, Okay, well, was this a good
business move and did this bring more eyes to the
game or did we make a bad move here?
Speaker 3 (15:25):
From where I sit. I hear a lot of investors
talking a pretty good game about women's sports. They celebrate
it and support it. What role are they playing in
these negotiations, those who've invested in this league. Are they
being outspoken about what's going on here?
Speaker 4 (15:37):
No, and that's what's fascinating.
Speaker 2 (15:39):
So we had a WNBPA lawyer on my show Good
Game with Sarah Spain, and one of the things that
she talked about that really could push these negotiations, could
move the needle publicly, is if the folks who invested,
believing that they were both making a great business decision
but also supporting the players and the teams that they
care about, they spoke out and said, why isn't the
(16:01):
money that we put in getting to the players, Why
is it just enriching these other folks.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
That would really change the conversation, I think.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Sarah says. So far, WNBA team owners haven't really spoken
out either, But they aren't monolithic. They approach this from
a variety of perspectives.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Some of them are invested in what it means to
support and invest in women's sports, and some of them
have just been told that it's a great place to invest.
With a lot of upside, and they're aligning more with
the side that I think is trying to make the
money without spending it.
Speaker 3 (16:36):
But Bloomberg's Jenna Hawk says it may be too early
for those owners to judge the return on their investment.
Speaker 5 (16:42):
At what point in a league should you actually be
talking about profitability. The NBA is decades older than the WNBA.
It took them many many years to churn a profit.
There's still plenty of different sports leagues that are decades
years old and they're not churning a profit. I think
all of these questions about how much money are they
(17:03):
bringing in, when should they be making money for their owners?
It's all kind of gotten into a question, well, if
you're in a period of major growth, are you supposed
to be seeing profit?
Speaker 3 (17:12):
Yet all this comes down to whether the players trust
the league's leadership to appropriately value their worth, and the
relationship between the league and its players union has only
deteriorated as the negotiations have dragged on, with the players
union and the league publicly sparring for weeks now over
everything from the value of its media deals to the
(17:32):
leadership of the league's commissioner, Kathy Engelbert.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
You look at NAFISA Collier's statement during her exit interview
for the Minnesota Links, talking about private conversations she had,
she told me players should be on their knees thanking
they're lucky stars for the media right steal that I
got them.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
Before the first game of the WNBA Finals, the commissioner
responded to the FISA Collier's statement and if the.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Players in the w don't feel appreciated and valued by
the league, then we have to do better, and I
have to do better.
Speaker 3 (17:58):
In the week since the back and forth has continued,
here's Lexi Brown again.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
Early in negotiations, it was very much we're gonna, you know,
we're gonna keep this in house, like basically like keep
it cute. And then I think just things just weren't
going the way we expected it to. Considering the explosion
of the WNBA in the last few years, I think
it kind of caught everybody off guard that the league
(18:24):
was just kind of like, yeah, like we're doing amazing,
y'all are doing amazing, but like we still want to
like keep y'all in this little corner over here that
we've had y'all in for the last twenty five years.
So slowly and slowly and slowly, we've kind of brought
it more out to the public.
Speaker 3 (18:39):
Now the players in the league have thirty more days
to try to see eye to eye. In a statement,
the WNBPA said, quote, while we believe negotiations would be
further along, the players are more focused, united, and determined
than ever to reach an agreement that reflects their value
and undeniable impact on the league. The WNBA says it
stands ready to continue negotiations, adding it hopes the union
(19:02):
does the same so that both parties can quote finalize
a mutually beneficial new CBA as quickly as possible. Lexi
Brown so she hopes to find a way to work
with the league and stay on good terms with leadership.
One day she could see herself being one of them.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
I can just speak for myself, like, I do want
to work in front office one day, whether that's in
the league or for a team, And I feel like
the best way to help grow the league when you're
done is to be a part of the higher ups.
So that's something that I've always dreamt of doing, as
being on the other side of the table in these negotiations.
Having a player's perspective. I feel like it could be
(19:39):
super beneficial.
Speaker 3 (19:43):
This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gerrat.
The show is hosted by me Wanha and Sarah Holder.
The show is made by Aaron Edwards, David Fox, Eleanor
Harrison Dengate, Patti Hirsch, Rachel Lewis, Krisky, Naomi Julia Press,
Tracy Samuelson, Naomi Shaven, Alex Kura, Julia Wi, Young Young,
and Taka Yasuzawa. To get more from the Big Take
(20:03):
and unlimited access to all of Bloomberg dot com, subscribe
today at Bloomberg dot com Slash Podcast offer. Thanks for listening.
We'll be back on Monday.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Thank you much
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Sarah Holder
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