-
Alexa Philippou
Multiple Authors
NEW YORK — Kelsey Plum said that while the players’ union should continue to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement, she believes the offer the WNBPA has received from the WNBA so far reflects a “significant win” and that “a strike would be the worst thing for both sides.”
“I want to play, and players want to play,” Plum, the WNBPA first vice president, said at Unrivaled shootaround prior to Monday night’s semifinal games in Brooklyn. “And so obviously we’re going to continue to negotiate and do everything we possibly can to get this done in a timely fashion. But obviously a strike would be the worst thing for both sides, because we are in a revenue [sharing system], so no revenue, no revenue to share.”
The two sides have been far apart on revenue sharing as they work toward a new CBA — a process that started nearly 17 months ago when the WNBPA opted out of the previous agreement. The WNBPA is asking for a system in which players receive on average 26% of gross revenue (before deducting expenses), while the league has been offering a system in which the players receive 70% of net revenue (after deducting expenses).
The players’ union has bristled at the league’s offer as it amounts to less than 15% of gross revenue, while the league has called the WNBPA’s proposals “unrealistic” and claimed they would amount to hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.
Plum said that getting the league to agree to a revenue sharing system for the first time — where players’ salaries will grow as both league and team revenue grows — is something “we fought really hard for,” and that the WNBPA can continue to negotiate the expense credits the league would get.
“You can continue to negotiate without striking,” Plum said. “… I’ve always been someone that’s focused on the gain, not the gap. And to be honest, I think if you look at where we’ve come from, shoot, since I came into the league until now, and now that we’re in a revenue share, it’s a tremendous win.
“Obviously, we’re going to continue to negotiate. I can’t emphasize that enough. Like we’re not just settling. I want to be very clear about that. But I’m super proud to be a part of this opportunity to change women’s sports.”
WNBPA vice president Breanna Stewart, who co-founded the 3-on-3 Unrivaled league, said she agrees with Plum.
“I think that while we still are fighting for a lot of different things, we have to realize that the rev share is a win, especially just even coming from the 2020 CBA and the ones before that,” Stewart said. “Now, as the league makes money, we make money. And so when [Plum] talks about ‘I don’t think a strike is good for anyone,’ because as the league loses money, or if we have a delay, we also lose money.”
The WNBPA player body authorized the seven-player executive committee, which includes Plum and Stewart, to authorize a strike “when necessary” in December. That possibility has lingered with both sides still not seeing eye to eye and the WNBA regular season scheduled to start May 8. Last week, the league gave the WNBPA a target date of March 10 to have a term sheet completed or else the season schedule could be impacted.
A source told ESPN that during a player call Tuesday, more than half of player leadership reaffirmed their desire to keep a strike on the table as a potential course of action, but Stewart and Plum’s public comments indicate at the very least that there is not a consensus.
Following a six-week stalemate to start the year, when the league did not respond to a WNBPA offer, both sides have exchanged a flurry of proposals over the past month. After the WNBPA submitted a counterproposal on Friday, the league responded with one of its own on Sunday.
The league’s new offer proposes accelerating maximum contract eligibility for star players on rookie-scale contracts, sources familiar with the negotiations told ESPN. All-WNBA first- and second-team players who are still on rookie deals would become eligible to sign a maximum contract in their fourth year, after which they would not be eligible for the core designation. A player on a rookie deal who earns MVP could also be eligible for a supermax deal and to not be cored.
For example, that would mean the past three No. 1 overall picks — Aliyah Boston, Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers — would become max-contract eligible in 2026, 2027 and 2028, respectively. The union has been asking to eliminate the core designation and to reduce the length of rookie-scale contracts from four years to three.
The league’s revenue share proposal remains the same as previous ones, though the cap in Year 1 was bumped from $5.65 million to $5.75 million, up from $1.5 million in 2025. Based on conservative league projections, the salary cap will grow to roughly $8.5 million by Year 6 of the deal, sources told ESPN.
The league’s proposal features maximum salaries, including revenue sharing payouts, amounting to nearly $1.3 million in 2026 and projecting to approach $2 million in 2031. The supermax in 2025 came in at $249,000. The average player salary, including revenue sharing, would be projected to reach $540,000 in 2026 and $780,000 by 2031, up from $120,000 in 2025, while the projected minimum salary would jump from $66,000 in 2025 to over $230,000 in 2026.
