Stephan Dybus Opinion Guest Essay The W.N.B.A. Is Making More Money Than Ever. Why Aren’t the Players?

The 2025 W.N.B.A. season has set records for attendance, both in total and per game, even before the playoffs. More than three million fans have flocked to see stars like A’ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces and Alyssa Thomas of the Phoenix Mercury, whose teams are facing each other in the league championship series starting on Friday. By many measures, it’s been the most successful season in league history. But the players aren’t fully sharing in that success.

At a news conference on Tuesday, Napheesa Collier of the Minnesota Lynx, the vice president of the Women’s National Basketball Players Association, tore into the league leadership for refusing to pay their athletes fairly. “The league believes it succeeds despite its players, not because of them,” she complained. She also said that the W.N.B.A.’s commissioner, Cathy Engelbert, had told her that notoriously low-paid stars like Caitlin Clark should just be grateful the league has given them a platform that enables them to earn money from sponsorships. Many other players chimed in on social media to echo Collier’s complaints.

The players have a simple ask when it comes to salaries: They want to be paid like the men in the N.B.A. The N.B.A. is bigger and richer than the W.N.B.A.; it brings in 50 times as much in revenue. But the more important difference is how that money is divvied up. Contractually, N.B.A. players get paid roughly 50 percent of what's called “basketball-related income,” which includes most of the league's revenue.