As the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) kicks off its 30th season, the league’s new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) needs to be framed as a major union win, especially in a climate where only 6.8 percent of workers are covered under a collective bargaining agreement. And while most workers will of course never be professional athletes, the union won considerable victories on a range of issues that matter to all workers. 

Although the two top-line gains of the new CBA — a 20 percent gross revenue share and nearly 400 percent average annual pay raise — made the biggest splashes, several others also matter: higher performance incentives; loosened “core designation” (i.e., “franchise tag”) constraints; and improved health and wellness benefits (player-friendly game scheduling, charter flights, more full-time medical staffs, and pregnancy protections). Stripping away the sports business jargon, the parallels between the negotiated pay, benefits and other workplace improvements secured by the WNBA CBA is what unions routinely do for workers. Individual workers typically have little power to implement, change or enforce workplace practices such as non-compete agreements, fair scheduling practices, health insurance, paid sick leave, and paid parental protections.

Even the revenue and salary gains need further context. In the season before CBA renegotiations began, the players received only 9.3 percent of league revenue, while the men who play in the NBA received up to 51 percent of all basketball-related revenue; WNBA salaries were as low as 1/80th of the average NBA salary. Many WNBA players competed overseas during the WNBA off-season, and some even started their own league. These added games extended their risks for injury, or even the risk of becoming a central figure of geopolitical gamesmanship. For the general workforce, it is similar to involuntary part-time work — a particular concern for women, many of whom lack steady hours with one employer.

The financial disparities between the WNBA and NBA, and between the WNBPA and WNBA owners, reflect the persistence of both gender pay gaps and the outsized power of owners and executives across professional sports. In the histories of every major professional sports organization, there are examples of underpaid talent with limited options to control their own careers (e.g., changing teams or challenging the governing sports bodies), or work in optimally safe conditions with appropriate health benefits. A primary excuse given is that organizations incur too much of the business risks and operational losses (i.e., negative or limited profitability) to give players their fair shares. Owner-controlled bonus and non-guaranteed pay structures, termination clauses, player lockouts, and even replacement hires (i.e., strikebreakers) when players collectively withhold their labor, further reduce the options that athletes can exercise. 

Outside Expertise: The Role of Claudia Goldin 

The union’s Executive Committee and Executive Director Terri Jackson leaned on the expertise of Harvard economist and 2023 Nobel Laureate Claudia Goldin to fortify their negotiation position. Her analyses substantiated an essential counter-narrative. Contrary to the prevailing story of a perennially insolvent women’s league underwritten by the NBA, more clearly evident was the fact that the players’ overall performance was undervalued. Using a layered but straightforward “just math” approach to calculate the most equitable players’ revenue share, Professor Goldin provided data-driven heft to the reality that the WNBA players’ financial fortunes amounted to a structural problem. 

When the arrival of the much-acclaimed 2024 WNBA rookie class helped boost league attendance and viewership — thus increasing the league’s revenue potential — Goldin’s work placed this development within a larger story. Building on the same type of data that other leagues used in their collective bargaining practices, the union was able to show that the WNBA players collectively grew the league and collectively received far less than their due. In fact, by Goldin’s calculation, the WNBA players should receive between 25 percent and one-third of the league’s revenue. 

Workers Win When Unions Win

As a union story, the WNBPA wins came through the combination of a thorough and sound collective bargaining strategy, and critically, player engagement and solidarity. Importantly, the WNBA’s new CBA is one step forward towards packages that rival the NBA, NFL, NHL, and MLB — leagues that also had troubled collective bargaining histories but eventually enacted near or over 50 percent revenue-share splits and robust benefits for their players. 

But it is also important to place the WNBPA’s gains alongside Amazon and Starbucks unionization pushes, recently bargained wins among New York City doorpersons, and efforts to organize federal workers. Doing so makes it clear that every win matters and can fuel momentum for future fights. Appeals for equitable pay, adequate and affordable health care, and sound family care provisions are universal. A collective of athletes secured enhanced financial resources and health benefits for their fellow workers, and demonstrated what unions always do: give workers a more equitable share of power.

As a final note, the new WNBA CBA also takes on significance as the fruits of organizing efforts that center women and racial/ethnic equity. The WNBA has a league composition that includes around two-thirds of its players who identify as Black, and 80 percent who identify as players of color. Nationally women and workers of colors face increasingly eroding rights and protections across the board.

As union and pro-labor efforts throughout the country forge ahead, spotlighting the wins should be as important as the strategies that are used to achieve them.