WNBA commissioner optimistic but players send message with ‘pay us’ T-shirts

WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said Saturday she feels optimistic that the league and the players’ union will be able to come to a new collective bargaining agreement at some point, even if it’s after the end of October deadline.

But the players made clear during the All-Star Game a couple of hours later that they mean business.

All of the players on Team Clark and Team Collier warmed up for Saturday night’s WNBA All-Star Game in shirts that read “Pay us what you owe us.”

The two sides are far apart right now after meeting Thursday for the first time in person since December—a meeting during which more than 40 players showed up to show support their negotiators. But Engelbert said she has faith that a deal will get finished.

“I’m still really optimistic that we’ll get something done that would be transformational,” she said before the All-Star Game on Saturday. “And that, next year at All-Star, we’ll be talking about how great everything is. Obviously there’s a lot of hard work to be done on both sides to get there.”

Engelbert said that more meetings are planned in the future. The current CBA will expire on Oct. 31 after the season is over.

“I have confidence we can get something done by October, but I’m not going to put an exact date on it,” she said. “We’ve got some room to continue negotiations if we’re close at that point.”

The players, meanwhile, had hatched the T-shirt idea at a meeting earlier Saturday.

“We get a very tiny percentage of all the money that’s made through the WNBA, which obviously is made through the entertainment we provide,” said All-Star captain Napheesa Collier on the decision to wear the shirts. “So we want a fair and reasonable percentage of that.”

At the end of the game, chants of “Pay them!” broke out in the arena. Some fans held signs that read “Pay the players,” during the game.

“We had no idea that they were in solidarity with our demonstration,” said Nneka Ogwumike, president of the WNBPA. “I’ve been hearing it all weekend at the fan events, supporting us and wanting us to get our fair share of the value.”

All-Star A’ja Wilson said during a post-game interview that the WNBA is in a “transformative time.”

“We need to start capitalizing on that,” she said. “It shows how powerful our voices are.”

There’s a lot of money coming into the league over the next few years with a new 11-year media rights deal worth over $2.2 billion, three new expansion teams that each paid $250 million in fees and many new sponsors.

The players top priorities are greatly increased salaries and a revenue sharing plan which Engelbert understands.

“We’re going to do something transformational here because we we want the same things as the players, but we want to significantly increase their salary and benefits while balancing with our owners, their ability to have a path to profitability, as well as in to continued investment,” she said.

The players said they have decided whether they’ll wear the “pay us” shirts over the course of the second half of the season, which begins Tuesday. Some said they hope that fans will wear them. The union announced on social media during the game that the shirts were on sale.

“You put it out there, and you stand on business,” said Courtney Williams about the shirts. “And we’re standing on business.”

Other areas that Engelbert discussed included:

Globalization

Engelbert talked about trying to expand the footprint of the league around the world more. The league will welcome its first team outside the U.S. next year with the addition of the Toronto Tempo. Engelbert mentioned Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa as places that could have huge interest in the WNBA.

“I think we’re really strong domestically now … There’s a huge amount of possibilities, to turn these players into a global household being stars that they’ve now become here in the United States domestically,” she said.

Officiating

The consistency of officiating has been a topic that players and coaches have been discussing a lot this season and Engelbert said that the league is aware and will evaluate it.

“I realize consistency is the name of the game and I think it’s something we definitely need to look at and evaluate. There’s an independent evaluation of our officials and there are ramifications. It’s something we need to continue to work on. As our game evolves so does our officiating, so we’re on it.”

Scheduling

Engelbert said that the league would look at possibly expanding the length of the season in the future on the backend of the season. The WNBA can’t really start any earlier because of the NCAA Tournament, but could go into early November. There’s a good shot that will happen next year with the FIBA World Cup taking place in early September.

“We’re looking about what’s the best footprint, what’s the best number of games?” she said.