As the 2025 WNBA playoffs tip off on Sunday, a contingent of players might be concurrently pursuing a championship whereas combating for the league’s future. That’s no completely different than another season performed below the cloud of collective bargaining negotiations. The league and union have gone by the course of 4 occasions since turning into the first girls’s professional sports activities league to ratify one in 1999.
Still, the magnitude of these negotiations on this particular postseason moment feels completely different than any earlier than. The key metrics of viewership, attendance and sponsorship offers are all climbing, and the league’s stars can’t afford any late-game slippage.
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Not when, like a lot else in the league, the playoff structure has expanded to the professional sports activities normal best-of-seven Finals. Or once they might enter into a piece stoppage to kick off the league’s thirtieth anniversary.
There have never been this many eyes, and in flip, this a lot alternative to depart an enduring impression as the union negotiates a deal ahead of the Oct. 31 deadline.
Though its skyrocketing ascension in recent times is essentially attributable to a youth motion, it’s the previous guard — er, sorry, more skilled players — burdened with the process since the postseason will go on with none of the headline names from the two most up-to-date drafts.
Caitlin Clark, the most generally recognizable participant for informal followers, announced last week that time had run out for her to return from a left groin harm. The seventh-seeded Indiana Fever, decimated by accidents all 12 months, will host their first postseason recreation since 2016 with out her. Her absence hasn’t hurt attendance, even when it has lowered the ceiling on the league’s jaw-dropping viewership numbers in video games that includes the NCAA’s all-time main scorer.
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Paige Bueckers, the presumptive Rookie of the Year to take Clark’s crown, and the Dallas Wings had been one of the first groups eradicated from playoff rivalry. The Washington Mystics, led by rookie All-Stars Sonia Citron and Kiki Iriafen, pushed exhausting for a spot, however fell quick. Sky ahead Angel Reese is busy telling her front office to surround her with talent to allow them to be there. And when the Storm secured the final playoff spot on Tuesday night, it knocked out the Sparks’ 2024 lottery picks, Cameron Brink and Rickea Jackson.
While these absences could also be a bummer, they’re removed from regarding in phrases of playoff consideration. Only Clark performed in the postseason a 12 months in the past. And the 2024 Finals — a five-game gauntlet of a collection that grew to become the most-watched in 25 years, with a year-over-year viewership rise of 115%, in accordance with ESPN — featured the identical solid that may star on this 12 months’s playoffs. There’s no motive to imagine the numbers gained’t be as spectacular by the time a brand new champion is topped in October.
No, that is the time for the veterans to face up and ball out in crunch time. The playoffs are constructed for Napheesa Collier, A’ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart, Alyssa Thomas, Allisha Gray and Sabrina Ionescu to shine. The StudBudz, too. One closing moment for present, not inform, on the subject of reinforcing their case for more of the pie. Because the pie retains rising bigger, past the $200 million annual historic media rights deal kicking in in 2026, and a reported $750 million in expansion fees for the most recent three additions.
WNBA All-Stars, together with Caitlin Clark and Sabrina Ionescu wore “Pay Us What You Owe Us” shirts throughout warmups earlier than the All-Star Game. (Photo by Steph Chambers/Getty Images)
(Steph Chambers through Getty Images)
It’s what future Hall of Famer Candace Parker wished out of the All-Star Game. The three-time WNBA champion criticized players for sporting “Pay Us What You Owe Us” T-shirts throughout this 12 months’s All-Star warm-ups, solely to deal with the recreation like a pleasant participation trophy soiree. It was an “added opportunity” to make the level and “maximize the moment,” she mentioned on her “Post Moves” podcast with Fever ahead Aliyah Boston.
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The playoffs, the premier product of any skilled sports activities league, are that chance juiced with 4 photographs of espresso. Add an power drink on the facet for good measure. These are the finest players in the world combating for championships and legacies.
When a league is as younger as the WNBA, that combat consists of the labor protections they depart for younger and future stars. Players are tunnel-visioned on wage and revenue-sharing buildings that ship “a fair and reasonable percentage” of the “entertainment we provide,” Collier mentioned in July. WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert mentioned the league needs to steadiness “significantly increas[ing] their salary and benefits” whereas permitting homeowners a path to profitability and continued funding.”
The three most up-to-date CBAs had been all ratified in January or February. The lone exception was when the first CBA expired ahead of 2003. The league hadn’t but turned 10, and questions abounded about whether or not an expert girls’s sports activities league might survive in the United States.
Rapid progress cratered, resulting in franchises in Miami and Portland folding that offseason, whereas the Orlando Miracle relocated to Connecticut and the Utah Starzz to San Antonio (and a few years later, to Las Vegas). The league postponed the player draft when a deal nonetheless wasn’t made in April 2003, and the NBA Board of Governors threatened to cancel the season. They lastly agreed to a deal, maintaining the season and league on tempo.
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It’s not about combating for the league’s mere existence. A piece stoppage would harm their progress trajectory, however not totally kill it. Leadership on either side of the desk has insisted they intend to come back to an settlement with out long-term strife.
Players took to calling the league’s preliminary CBA proposal a “slap in the face.” The moment is right here for them to return the favor, leaving an enduring mark ahead of what might be a tumultuous offseason. It’s time to depart zero doubt in anybody’s thoughts that the players had been and are price what they’re asking of a enterprise that’s certainly booming.