Sports Press Covers WNBA Negotiations From Owners' Point of View

Emma Lucia Llano

A New York Times graphic (10/3/25) tells the story: The WNBA brings in a lot of money, an a tiny fraction goes to the players.

Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) players have quickly become some of the most recognizable female athletes in the world, with ballooning ticket sales and record-breaking viewership over the past two seasons. As a result, league revenues have soared.

But unlike their male counterparts in the National Basketball Association, who are guaranteed 50% of the NBA’s basketball-related income, WNBA players are not guaranteed a percentage of such income—which includes things like media deals, merchandise and ticket sales, and concessions. So the players haven't shared in the league's flood of new revenue; a recent estimate put the women's 2025 pay at about 7% of revenue.

As a result, the Women's National Basketball Player’s Association (WNBPA) opted out of their collective bargaining agreement (CBA) in October of last year, and the league has been careening toward a lockout as negotiations soured, with revenue-sharing the biggest sticking point.

Despite the massive amount of money coming into the WNBA, the league—which is majority-owned by NBA owners—wants to keep their revenue-sharing structure the same, guaranteeing far more profit for owners and investors than for the people who actually play the game. And too many news reports have catered to owners' interests when reporting on the negotiations between the players' union and the league.

'An unstable business'

"Realistically," WNBA players should hope for a quarter of the share of revenues that their male counterparts get, according to Bleacher Report (9/18/25).

A prominent talking point when it comes to WNBA contract negotiations is profitability. During these negotiations, news outlets have continued to push the idea that the WNBA is not profitable, exclusively relying on anonymous sources, without ever referencing any corroborating financial documents.

NBC Sports’ (11/3/25) recent claimed, for instance, that “the WNBA has had a long reputation of being an unstable business, and one that only lost money rather than made it.” Bleacher Report (9/18/25) wrote that "the WNBA isn't profitable yet," and Sports Illustrated (7/19/25) made similar statements about the league’s finances. None of these provided a source for their claims.

The New York Times–owned Athletic (7/24/25) reported:

According to sources with knowledge of the discussions who are not authorized to speak about the matter publicly, the league and teams combined have not been profitable since the WNBA’s inception in 1996.

The Athletic relied on anonymous sources, and did not mention being shown any financial documents to prove their sources’ assertions. News reports never do—because the WNBA has never publicly disclosed its finances. Even the Player's Association does not have access to the league’s books. Any claims of lack of profitability cannot be independently verified, yet several outlets presented these statements as fact.

'We won't see any windfall for years'

The New York Post's only source for its claim (10/18/24) that the WNBA loses $40 million a year is "sources close to the situation."

When numbers regarding the league's profitability are cited in coverage of the current negotiations, the source is usually an article from the New York Post (10/18/24). Shortly before the deadline to opt out of the CBA in October of 2024—prime time for each side to try to control the narrative—the Post's Josh Kosman and Brian Lewis reported that the WNBA would be losing $40 million that year, relying on the testimony of an anonymous NBA executive.

“The WNBA owes the NBA so much we won’t see any windfall for years,” the Post quoted the anonymous source.

Earlier that year, the Washington Post (6/24/24) reported an even higher figure—$50 million—citing “two people with knowledge of the figures.” That article led to headlines like "One Boom Season Won't Close the Hole in the WNBA's Balance Sheet" (Front Office Sports, 6/12/24).

Some also cite NBA commissioner Adam Silver's claim in 2018, reported credulously by the Associated Press (12/28/18), that the WNBA had lost an average of $10 million a year since its inception.

But there is very good reason to doubt the league’s narrative when it comes to its finances. First, as sports economics professor David Berri (Wages of Wins, 10/27/24) points out, the NBA is hardly a reliable source on its own profitability. In the early '70s, the early '80s and again as recently as 2011, when it came time to renegotiate collective bargaining agreements with the male players, the NBA claimed it was losing money. In 1972, the league was forced to open its books to an independent financial review as part of an antitrust case. The economist in charge of the review concluded that, because there are countless perfectly legal ways to take profits—for instance, owners who also own the team's arena can charge very high rent for their team to play in that arena—"the stated book profits are virtually meaningless."

Similarly, sports management professor Nola Agha (Sherwood News, 9/25/24) said that pro leagues commonly use accounting tricks to declare a loss, "even if they’re cash-flow positive, and even if the asset value of the business is increasing every year.” This helps them justify public funding for arenas, and gives them leverage in contract negotiations.

Regarding the WNBA, the growth of the league’s popularity has led to a $2.2 billion, 11-year media deal with ABC, Disney and Amazon, increasing annual media revenue from $60 million to over $200 million. The league also plans on adding three new teams in 2026, each of which has to pay a $25o million expansion fee. That's five times the expansion fee paid by the Golden State Valkyries just two years earlier.

Even if one takes the league's claims of a few hundred million in losses at face value—which, as we've established, one should clearly not—those purported losses stand to be erased completely in short order, and the spigot of revenue shows no signs of slowing.  The New York Liberty, whose current owners bought the team for less than $15 million in 2019, is currently valued at $450 million—suggesting that regardless of on-the-books profits, owning a WNBA team can be a very lucrative endeavor.

A much less often cited figure concerning league finances came from ESPN (3/25/25): over $1 billion, which is what financial services firm Deloitte, an advisor to the WNBA, said league revenues would reach in 2025. That's after the league brought in $710 million in 2024, according to Deloitte. (If these numbers are accurate, players' share of 2025 revenue was more like 2.5%.)

So why do reporters take owner claims at face value? Berri (Wages of Wins, 7/28/25) pointed out the absurdity that is apparent if anyone bothered to look a little closer: "While Bloomberg had reported in 2023 that revenues had doubled from 2019 to 2023, the WNBA/NBA insisted that losses had grown five times!"

An even split 'isn't realistic'

The Washington Post (9/14/25) asks "whether owners are owed anything for their longtime support of a league that operated at a loss for years"—citing unverified claims of $500 million in losses over 29 years. Not mentioned: The WNBA's teams are now collectively worth more than $3 billion (Forbes, 6/6/25).

"Pay us what you owe us" became the players' battle cry in the 2025 All-Star Game, emblazoned on their warm-up shirts. But to hear some in the media tell it, what they were owed was very little.

The Washington Post (9/14/25), under the headline "How Much Are WNBA Players Worth?" said that "players and some economists say it’s straightforward: Players should earn roughly 50% of the league’s revenue, just as the athletes in the big four US men’s sports leagues do." But owners "say expenses eat up a higher percentage of revenue than they do in bigger, more established leagues, according to people familiar with the league’s thinking." Ah, the familiar anonymous sources. "Then there is the question of whether owners are owed anything for their longtime support of a league that operated at a loss for years"—which, according to those anonymous sources again, has reached $500 million.

After quoting some players and player advocates, the paper turned yet again to anonymous league sources to explain that a 50/50 split would "threaten sustainability," because "giving WNBA players the same professional standards as their NBA peers—chartered jets, luxury hotels and the same arenas for smaller crowds—eats up roughly 90% of WNBA revenue." It's quite a claim, and yet the Post offered no pushback for the sources to substantiate it.

The Post didn't attempt to actually put a number on the "how much are they worth" question, but Bleacher Report's Eric Pincus (9/18/25) did:

WNBA players jumping to a roughly 50/50 revenue split with owners like the NBA isn't realistic. WNBA operating costs are higher, and the business isn't as mature.

That line came from an article headlined "How Much Money Can WNBA Players Realistically Expect in Next CBA Deal?" which told readers that "the various costs to run the WNBA are 3–5 times higher than those incurred by the NBA for similar services, such as staff, facilities and travel"—according to unnamed sources, as usual—and that "as the WNBA continues to grow, those costs should level out." Pincus suggested a "practical compromise" might "gradually increase the players' revenue share," so that "max salaries could surpass $660,000 by 2027."

The New York Times (10/3/25) published a useful, if rare, corrective to these sorts of claims of the impossibility of a 50/50 split, in the form of an op-ed from Berri:

The WNBA makes more money than the NBA did at the same point in its history…. Even in the 1950s, when the NBA was earning one-tenth (in 2025 dollars) what the women's league makes today, it paid players 40% of total revenue, a startling contrast to the 7% WNBA players get.

And by the end of the '70s, Berri noted, male players' revenue share had reached "at least half"—at a time when NBA revenue was lower than the W's projected revenue for 2026.

In the context of Berri's number-crunching and historical comparisons, it's unclear how giving women players 50% revenue share "isn't realistic" for any reasons other than misogyny and greed.

Focus on salaries, not revenue

Bloomberg (11/7/25) unsurprisingly sides with the billionaires: "For some team owners, sharing more revenue could bite. Those who have been in control of their franchises the longest have experienced lean years that saw other teams fold—and are eager to recoup their losses."

Profitability is not the only claim WNBA ownership made that the media took at face value. Bloomberg (11/7/25) reported:

For its part, the WNBA has proposed tripling player salaries while keeping in place an arrangement that opens up revenue-sharing if certain growth targets are reached, according to the [anonymous] people [familiar with the talks]. To date, those benchmarks have never been hit.

If you read further, you come to understand that the convoluted setup, plus the Covid shutdown, made those benchmarks impossible to hit—but also that, even if they were hit, the players would only get revenue sharing on the overage, and even then only a small fraction.

As Jacob Mox (IX Basketball, 8/1/25) explained:

Even if…league revenue had increased by 20% every year through 2025, to the point of being nearly triple that of the league’s 2019 revenue, not a single penny would have been distributed in revenue sharing.

So when the league says "revenue-sharing" is part of its offer to players in current negotiations, reporters ought to read that with skepticism. Does it mean players get a share of all revenues—sometimes referred to as "clean" sharing—like the men? Or does it mean there's a complicated formula that allows the league to say they're sharing, when in fact the women will still get peanuts?

'Exactly what the players wanted'

To Sports Illustrated (11/18/25), the WNBA's proposal "seems like exactly what the players had wanted." But it doesn't seem that way to the players' union (ESPN, 11/20/25).

In its latest offer, the league proposed a new minimum salary of $220,000, with a maximum salary of over $1.2 million. What about the main point of contention, which is the revenue-sharing structure? According to Yahoo! Sports (11/21/25), “There were scant details about the degree of revenue-sharing.” However, that did not stop sports media outlets from praising the league’s latest offer, and prematurely rejoicing at the coming end of negotiations.

AP (11/18/25) broke the news of the latest proposal, citing the usual anonymous owner-side sources:

People familiar with the WNBA’s latest proposal described the plan to the AP as a highly lucrative package providing substantial increases over prior years and designed to bring negotiations to a quick conclusion.

Though the union has been abundantly clear about their desire to change the revenue structure, the message has somehow not gotten through to the media. Sports Illustrated’s Grant Young (11/18/25) wrote that “this report seems like exactly what the players had wanted with the new CBA.” Forbes (11/19/25) made a similar claim, asserting that “if settled, one of the main demands from the players party will have been met.”

Fox’s Outkick (11/20/25) reported that the league’s new offer

includes a massive raise along with additional benefits. And by massive raise, we mean three to four times the previous salaries. But despite the eye-popping monetary figures, it's unclear whether the players' union is finally satisfied.

Sports Illustrated (11/18/25) also focused on the salary increase: “That's also about a 400% increase in salary from the CBA before this year, which one would imagine players are happy about.”

The job of journalists is not to “imagine” what a crucial stakeholder in these negotiations may feel; it is to ask them for their reaction, something which AP, Forbes, Outkick and Sports Illustrated all failed to do.

Some cursory reporting would reveal that this is far from “exactly what the players wanted.” As WNBPA president Nneka Oguwmike (CBS Sports, 10/21/24) said last year, “Opting out isn't just about bigger paychecks—it's about claiming our rightful share of the business we've built.” Indeed, the players' union said the new offer does not meet their central demands (ESPN, 11/20/25).

Yet media outlets have repeatedly decided to focus on the monetary amount of salary increases, rather than the percentages compared to the league’s revenue. In October, when the WNBA announced an offer, the Athletic (10/24/25) reported that both the WNBA's and the players union's “plans include a substantial salary increase for players.” Front Office Sports (10/28/25) also used the word “substantial” to describe the league's proposal, while Disney's ESPN (10/30/25) chose to call them “sizable.”

The WNBA’s proposed salary increases might appear to be "substantial” compared to the salaries in the current CBA. However, these media outlets fail to note how abysmal the current salaries are compared to the league’s revenue. For example, according to Berri, 2024 Rookie of the Year Caitlin Clark could have made around $3 million during her first season, had revenue-sharing been implemented. Instead, she made just $76,535 (New York Times, 10/3/25), and the newest "lucrative" increase would give her a little more than $300,000.

Plain old misogyny

David Samson (Pablo Torre Finds Out, 10/28/25): "What the women want in the WNBA is for the WNBA to do a deal that would guarantee no profitability."

Most bad faith arguments against a revenue-sharing model for the WNBA can be summarized by a statement made by David Samson on the popular investigative sports journalism podcast Pablo Torre Finds Out (10/28/25), which is distributed by the Athletic:

What kind of an idiot would sign a deal that guarantees lack of profitability? You literally have to be out of your mind. What the women want in the WNBA is for the WNBA to do a deal that would guarantee no profitability. They're not going to do it.

And I would call the bluff of all these negotiators, of all the women who are talking about "We want the same percentage of the revenue as the NBA players get."... There is zero chance that the women in the WNBA are going to get the same percentage of revenue that the NBA players get.

Samson, a frequent guest on the podcast, is the former owner of the Major League Baseball’s Miami Marlins, so he's clearly coming from an owner's perspective. Aside from the false profitability claims that we have already debunked, the language Samson uses to talk about the WNBA is particularly interesting. In those four sentences, Sampson says the word “women” three times, in case listeners were unaware what the W in WNBA stands for.

Meanwhile, when he references male athletes, he refers to them as "players." The implication, whether purposeful or not, is that NBA players get to be athletes first, while WNBA players’ most significant characteristic is their gender.

Torre did not make any attempt to counter Samson’s statement.

The misogyny at the heart of the gender wage gap runs deep. Where sports reporting should be illuminating and challenging that misogyny and holding the powerful owners to account, much of it instead only adds to the discrimination WNBA players face.