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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news, twenty eight.

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Speaker 2: Years in the Banking to New York Liberty WNBA champions.

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Speaker 3: On October twentieth of last year, the New York Liberty

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Speaker 3: faced off against the Minnesota Links in the WNBA Finals.

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Speaker 2: The original franchise has its very first title.

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Speaker 3: It was an historic night. The Liberty won its first

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Speaker 3: ever WNBA championship, marking the end of a remarkable season

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Speaker 3: for the team and for the league. In twenty twenty four,

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Speaker 3: attendance at WNBA games was up nearly fifty percent from

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Speaker 3: the previous year, its highest in more than two decades.

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Speaker 3: Televised games attracted tens of millions of viewers over the

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Speaker 3: course of the season. More than a million people tuned

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Speaker 3: in to see the Liberty claim their first title. The

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Speaker 3: next day, the WNBPA, the union representing the league's players,

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Speaker 3: posted a video on x with a clear message.

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Speaker 2: The WNBA you know if you want us to be here,

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Speaker 2: you have to pay us more.

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Speaker 3: It was an announcement the players union was opting out

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Speaker 3: of its existing contract with the league. The union agreed

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Speaker 3: to keep the contract's terms through the end of the

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Speaker 3: twenty twenty five season, while both parties negotiated new terms,

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Speaker 3: but today October thirty, first, twenty twenty five, the clock

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Speaker 3: on those negotiations runs out.

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Speaker 2: One of my favorite things is that it's on Halloween.

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Speaker 2: It feels very spooky season.

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Speaker 3: Sarah Spain has been covering the WNBA for ESPN for

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Speaker 3: more than a decade. She's also the host of the

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Speaker 3: women's sports podcast Good Game with Sarah Spain. Yesterday, instead

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Speaker 3: of reaching a deal, the league and the players union

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Speaker 3: announced a thirty day extension, saying they'd continue negotiations through

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Speaker 3: the month of November with a caveat. The union maintains

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Speaker 3: the right to terminate the extension at any time with

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Speaker 3: forty eight hours notice. How would you characterize the quality

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Speaker 3: of the conversations the negotiations that have taken place so.

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Speaker 4: Far U acrimonious.

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Speaker 3: Acrimonious in part because there's a lot at stake.

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Speaker 2: Less than a handful of WNBA veterans are under contract

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Speaker 2: for next year. Almost every single player not tied to

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Speaker 2: a rookie contract has elected to have their contract end

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Speaker 2: with this season, and really, what's at the center of it,

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Speaker 2: at the biggest, most important level, is a desire for

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Speaker 2: the players to get a revenue share.

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Speaker 3: Lexi Brown is a guard for the Seattle Storm. She's

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Speaker 3: not a free agent, but after eight seasons in the league,

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Speaker 3: she's asking for a bigger piece of the pie.

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Speaker 1: We're asking for the share of something that we've built,

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Speaker 1: something that we've created.

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Speaker 3: Lexi says she's seen huge improvements for players on and

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Speaker 3: off the court since she started, but she says the

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Speaker 3: growing popularity of the game has made her realize how

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Speaker 3: undervalued the players have been.

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Speaker 1: It's like being like in a relationship with the toxic

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Speaker 1: man and then you find the good man. You're like, oh,

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Speaker 1: this is what it feels like. And I feel like

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Speaker 1: Vegas and New York and Seattle have been three of

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Speaker 1: the organizations that have finally had ownership groups that are

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Speaker 1: making all of us feel respected, valued and really investing

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Speaker 1: in us. Just understanding how undervalued we've been for so

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Speaker 1: many years. And I think for most of us that's

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Speaker 1: really the principle of showing us that you value us

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Speaker 1: as players and value the product that we put out

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Speaker 1: every season.

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Speaker 3: I'm David Gera, and this is the big take from

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Speaker 3: Bloomberg News today. On the show, at the negotiating Table

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Speaker 3: with the WNBA and the WNBPA what the players want,

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Speaker 3: what the league wants, and what's on the line for

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Speaker 3: one of the fastest growing sports leagues in the world

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Speaker 3: if they can't make a deal. The WNBA started nearly

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Speaker 3: thirty years ago in nineteen ninety seven. It was a

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Speaker 3: pivotal moment in women's sports. Many of the players that

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Speaker 3: first season had just won a gold medal for Team

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Speaker 3: USA at the nineteen ninety six Olympics in Atlanta. To

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Speaker 3: even qualify for the team, they had to spend the

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Speaker 3: year leading up to the games traveling the world, leaving

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Speaker 3: existing careers and taking pay cuts to play in small

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Speaker 3: arenas and local gyms, part of then NBA commissioner David

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Speaker 3: Stearn's plan to drum up interest in women's basketball players

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Speaker 3: nicknamed it the WNBA Test Balloon. Decades later, that balloon

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Speaker 3: is floating higher than ever. Players like Caitlin Clark, Breonna Stewart,

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Speaker 3: Paige Becker's, and Angel Reese have become household names standard

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Speaker 3: metrics of success. TV viewership, game attendance valuations, and ticket

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Speaker 3: sales have soared all except for one player pay, specifically

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Speaker 3: a share of the revenue. In twenty twenty five, base

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Speaker 3: pay for WNBA players range from about sixty six thousand

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Speaker 3: dollars to two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. NBA players

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Speaker 3: play roughly twice as many games, but their annual salary

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Speaker 3: is significantly higher, anywhere from about one point two million

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Speaker 3: dollars to fifty six million dollars. At this year's WNBA

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Speaker 3: All Star Game, players wore t shirts that read, pay

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Speaker 3: us what you owe us. It was a big statement.

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Speaker 3: Here's ESPN reporter and Good Game host Sarah Spain.

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Speaker 2: So right now they're getting less than ten percent of

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Speaker 2: the WNBA revenue compared to about fifty percent that NBA

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Speaker 2: players get.

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Speaker 4: And at the crux of.

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Speaker 2: It is, the league side wants them to get higher salaries,

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Speaker 2: but they want their revenue to be affected by certain

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Speaker 2: stipulations a predetermined rate, whereas the players want their revenue

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Speaker 2: to go up, their salary cap to go up, all

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Speaker 2: of those things to be dependent on growth along with

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Speaker 2: the revenue that they're creating for the league.

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Speaker 3: I want to dig into the revenue sharing piece of

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Speaker 3: this a bit more. And you brought up the contrast

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Speaker 3: between the WNBA and the NBA, so can you spell

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Speaker 3: that out a bit more explicitly, well.

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Speaker 4: We'll give you the extremes.

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Speaker 2: So, as of the most recent report, Steph Curry is

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Speaker 2: the highest paid NBA player place for the Warriors, and

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Speaker 2: Jackie Young is one of the highest paid WNBA and

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Speaker 2: Steph Curry makes two hundred and thirty times as much

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Speaker 2: money as Jackie Young. There was a great op ed

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Speaker 2: in The New York Times by Nobel Prize winning economist

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Speaker 2: Claudia Golden, and these are her numbers. And one of

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Speaker 2: the very tricky things about discussing this issue is that

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Speaker 2: there is such a lack of financial transparency from the

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Speaker 2: NBAWNBA league side, so everyone is sort of estimating at

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Speaker 2: revenue profit.

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Speaker 4: Everything else cost.

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Speaker 2: But according to Claudia Golden's numbers, based on game attendance,

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Speaker 2: TV viewership, all the other stuff, WNBA players should make

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Speaker 2: somewhere around a quarter of what NBA players are making,

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Speaker 2: and they're making an eightieth.

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Speaker 3: That's partly because WNBA base salaries are lower, but another

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Speaker 3: factor is that the NBA and the WNBA have really

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Speaker 3: different approaches when it comes to the way they pay

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Speaker 3: their players. What's essentially a bonus. That's something Bloomberg Data

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Speaker 3: visualization reporter Jenna Hawk has spent years looking.

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Speaker 5: Into So the NBA looks at everything in terms of

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Speaker 5: basketball related income. So basically, anything that is brought in

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Speaker 5: their media rights deals, concessions sold at games, ticket sales,

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Speaker 5: corporate sponsorships, merchandise, it's all under one pot. And within

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Speaker 5: that large pot they basically split it up and fifty

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Speaker 5: one percent between fifty to fifty one percent goes directly

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Speaker 5: to players. The rest goes to the league, the owners,

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Speaker 5: et cetera.

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Speaker 3: The WNBA, on the other hand, when it.

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Speaker 5: Comes to revenue sharing, only league revenue is up for sharing.

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Speaker 5: So the current collective Bargaining Agreement technically already has a

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Speaker 5: revenue sharing provision, but unfortunately, because of really strict requirements

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Speaker 5: that have been outlined in that CBA and because of

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Speaker 5: really difficult thresholds that the league has to meet, the

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Speaker 5: revenue sharing has never actually kicked in for the players.

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Speaker 5: So even though it's been outlined in this CBA since

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Speaker 5: twenty twenty, players haven't actually seen a dime of that

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Speaker 5: money go into their paychecks.

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Speaker 3: Jenna says those requirements are difficult to meet. The league

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Speaker 3: has to increase its revenue by twenty percent for two

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Speaker 3: consecutive years in order for the players to claim a share.

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Speaker 5: And so if you miss your target one year, the

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Speaker 5: following year you have to make up for all that

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Speaker 5: lost money and again meet your twenty percent goal for

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Speaker 5: that year. So you can imagine whethering a pandemic, there's

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Speaker 5: some lost money on the table. So the kind of

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Speaker 5: growth targets have then become much higher for the league.

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Speaker 5: After you meet all these cumulative targets, only about seventeen

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Speaker 5: point five percent of the final area that's up for

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Speaker 5: grabs will actually go to players. And so we kind

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Speaker 5: of calculated a couple of years ago how much would

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Speaker 5: players actually receive. Well, when you actually split it up,

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Speaker 5: give the players the portion that they are owned, give

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Speaker 5: the league what they're owned. There's another provision called the

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Speaker 5: cost of doing revenue. So if you start out with

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Speaker 5: an excess of two million dollars and the union opts

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Speaker 5: to split all of these funds kind of equally, players

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Speaker 5: would basically only get a two thousand dollars four hundred

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Speaker 5: one time bonus.

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Speaker 3: Here's Seattle Storm player Lexi Brown.

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Speaker 1: The WNBA takes care of our housing. You know, if

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Speaker 1: you don't have a car and market, they take care

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Speaker 1: of that. They do supplement a lot of expenses for us.

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Speaker 1: Despite these really low salaries, I do think like we're

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Speaker 1: super underpaid for what we do on the daily and

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Speaker 1: the expectations they have for us. I remember, I think

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Speaker 1: I made forty grand my rookie year, the season I

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Speaker 1: got waves and only played half the year. I think

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Speaker 1: I only made like fifteen twenty thousand dollars playing, and

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Speaker 1: I want a championship that year.

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Speaker 3: When it comes to the current contract negotiations, Lexi pointed

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Speaker 3: out the league is offering them higher base salaries, but

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Speaker 3: what it doesn't want to budge on is the revenue

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Speaker 3: share structure.

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Speaker 1: You do have some players who are looking at these

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Speaker 1: new numbers and they're like that looks pretty good to me,

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Speaker 1: Like what's the big deal. And then you also have

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Speaker 1: just other players like it's the principle of what's going

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Speaker 1: on here, Like they are not allowing us to also

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Speaker 1: grow with this business that we are helping grow.

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Speaker 3: The league argues that while it's rapidly growing, it still

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Speaker 3: isn't profitable. Getting a look at those finances can be

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Speaker 3: tricky because the WNBA is a private company.

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Speaker 5: So they don't actually have to disclose how much money

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Speaker 5: that they're making every single year, whether they're churning a profit.

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Speaker 3: In twenty twenty three, though, Jenna got her hands on

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Speaker 3: some official WNBA documents which helped give her a picture

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Speaker 3: of the league's finances.

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Speaker 5: From the end of fiscal year twenty nineteen, the league

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Speaker 5: had brought in around fifty one point eight million dollars.

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Speaker 5: In twenty twenty four, the league brought in over one

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Speaker 5: hundred and forty four million dollars, so it's one hundred

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Speaker 5: seventy seven percent jump.

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Speaker 3: Even so, Jenna says, we can't definitely say whether or

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Speaker 3: not the WNBA is profitable.

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Speaker 5: Some of those numbers still are a little murky to

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Speaker 5: us because of these complicated accounting structures. It also kind

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Speaker 5: of depends on owners that you ask. There's a lot

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Speaker 5: of NBA owners who also have tie ups in the

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Speaker 5: WNBA that claim they're losing lots of money. Other owners

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Speaker 5: will tell you it doesn't look like that if you

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Speaker 5: take into account the larger picture. So we can't say

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Speaker 5: definitively whether the WNBA is like truly making money yet.

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Speaker 3: The WNBA did not respond to questions about its profitability.

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Speaker 3: But when it comes to the revenue shared deal on

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Speaker 3: the table. A league spokesperson told us it offered players

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Speaker 3: quote a revenue sharing component that would result in the

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Speaker 3: player's compensation increasing as league revenue increases without any cap.

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Speaker 3: On the upside, that revenue shared deal would only go

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Speaker 3: into effect if certain requirements were met, like the current contract,

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Speaker 3: and the question of profit how much or how little

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Speaker 3: the league is making, sits at the center of these negotiations.

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Speaker 3: What is eating so much into the WNBA's profits.

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Speaker 4: Wouldn't we all like to know?

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Speaker 2: Wouldn't we all like for them to tell us this

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Speaker 2: is a league that starts an eleven year two point

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Speaker 2: two billion dollar right steal next year and has a

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Speaker 2: series of lesser value media right steals and has record merchandise, attendance, viewership,

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Speaker 2: everything else. So the idea that the argument would be

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Speaker 2: the same decades later, which is that it's still on

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Speaker 2: the players to really settle for scraps as they try

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Speaker 2: to build this league, as opposed to seeing the player's

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Speaker 2: percentage and salaries go up along with the growth of

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Speaker 2: the league.

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Speaker 4: Is I think, what's so frustrating.

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Speaker 3: Coming up after the break, how the WNBA's dizzying ownership

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Speaker 3: structure complicates the picture, and what could make the two

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Speaker 3: sides come to a deal. The WNBA and the wnbpas

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Speaker 3: spooky Halloween deadline is here, and instead of reaching a deal,

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Speaker 3: the two sides have agreed to extend their talks for

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Speaker 3: another thirty days, with the condition that the players may

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Speaker 3: terminate the extension at any time with forty eight hours notice.

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Speaker 3: A source familiar with the situation said the league will

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Speaker 3: have the option to terminate it as well. There's no

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Speaker 3: shortage of competing factors at play in these negotiations, but

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Speaker 3: ESPN Sarah Spain says a significant one is the league's

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Speaker 3: financial picture, made even more complicated by its ownership structure.

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Speaker 2: So the WNBA has forty two percent, the NBA has

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Speaker 2: forty two percent, and then there's a sixteen percent that

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Speaker 2: was sold in twenty twenty two to a variety of investors.

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Speaker 3: At the time of the twenty twenty two deal, that

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Speaker 3: sixteen percent was sold off for seventy five million dollars,

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Speaker 3: which would have valued the whole league at around four

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Speaker 3: hundred and seventy million dollars.

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Speaker 2: Three years later, one team, the New York Liberty, was

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Speaker 2: valued at close to that number on its own.

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Speaker 4: You have a league that is estimated to be worth.

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Speaker 2: Billions in the next couple years, and you sold off

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Speaker 2: sixteen percent of it for just seventy five million dollars.

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Speaker 3: Here's Bloomberg reporter Jenna Hawk.

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Speaker 5: There's almost two camps on how people view this. There's

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Speaker 5: the one camp, which is like, this was the biggest

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Speaker 5: amount of investment into women's sports in the history of

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Speaker 5: all time at that point, and you had all these

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Speaker 5: really big names declaring their support and earmarking their money

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Speaker 5: directly for women's sports, really big names like Condolleza, Rice Michael,

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Speaker 5: and Susan Dell, Loreene Powell jobs. On the other hand,

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Speaker 5: you have other people being like, well, if women's sports

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Speaker 5: and the WNBA as a league is on the precipice

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Speaker 5: of this really big moment, and we know that the

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Speaker 5: growth is coming, why dilute the shares? And that has

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Speaker 5: kind of been lurking for years now, especially as you

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Speaker 5: kind of shore up these big media rights deals, especially

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Speaker 5: as you talk about this collective bargaining agreement negotiations. It's

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Speaker 5: all kind of like, Okay, well, was this a good

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Speaker 5: business move and did this bring more eyes to the

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Speaker 5: game or did we make a bad move here?

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Speaker 3: From where I sit. I hear a lot of investors

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Speaker 3: talking a pretty good game about women's sports. They celebrate

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Speaker 3: it and support it. What role are they playing in

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Speaker 3: these negotiations, those who've invested in this league. Are they

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Speaker 3: being outspoken about what's going on here?

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Speaker 4: No, and that's what's fascinating.

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Speaker 2: So we had a WNBPA lawyer on my show Good

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Speaker 2: Game with Sarah Spain, and one of the things that

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Speaker 2: she talked about that really could push these negotiations, could

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Speaker 2: move the needle publicly, is if the folks who invested,

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Speaker 2: believing that they were both making a great business decision

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Speaker 2: but also supporting the players and the teams that they

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Speaker 2: care about, they spoke out and said, why isn't the

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Speaker 2: money that we put in getting to the players, Why

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Speaker 2: is it just enriching these other folks.

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Speaker 4: That would really change the conversation, I think.

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Speaker 3: Sarah says. So far, WNBA team owners haven't really spoken

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Speaker 3: out either, But they aren't monolithic. They approach this from

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Speaker 3: a variety of perspectives.

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Speaker 2: Some of them are invested in what it means to

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Speaker 2: support and invest in women's sports, and some of them

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Speaker 2: have just been told that it's a great place to invest.

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Speaker 2: With a lot of upside, and they're aligning more with

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Speaker 2: the side that I think is trying to make the

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Speaker 2: money without spending it.

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Speaker 3: But Bloomberg's Jenna Hawk says it may be too early

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Speaker 3: for those owners to judge the return on their investment.

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Speaker 5: At what point in a league should you actually be

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Speaker 5: talking about profitability. The NBA is decades older than the WNBA.

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Speaker 5: It took them many many years to churn a profit.

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Speaker 5: There's still plenty of different sports leagues that are decades

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Speaker 5: years old and they're not churning a profit. I think

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Speaker 5: all of these questions about how much money are they

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Speaker 5: bringing in, when should they be making money for their owners?

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Speaker 5: It's all kind of gotten into a question, well, if

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Speaker 5: you're in a period of major growth, are you supposed

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Speaker 5: to be seeing profit?

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Speaker 3: Yet all this comes down to whether the players trust

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Speaker 3: the league's leadership to appropriately value their worth, and the

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Speaker 3: relationship between the league and its players union has only

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Speaker 3: deteriorated as the negotiations have dragged on, with the players

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Speaker 3: union and the league publicly sparring for weeks now over

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Speaker 3: everything from the value of its media deals to the

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Speaker 3: leadership of the league's commissioner, Kathy Engelbert.

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Speaker 2: You look at NAFISA Collier's statement during her exit interview

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Speaker 2: for the Minnesota Links, talking about private conversations she had,

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Speaker 2: she told me players should be on their knees thanking

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Speaker 2: they're lucky stars for the media right steal that I

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Speaker 2: got them.

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Speaker 3: Before the first game of the WNBA Finals, the commissioner

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Speaker 3: responded to the FISA Collier's statement and if the.

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Speaker 1: Players in the w don't feel appreciated and valued by

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Speaker 1: the league, then we have to do better, and I

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Speaker 1: have to do better.

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Speaker 3: In the week since the back and forth has continued,

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Speaker 3: here's Lexi Brown again.

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Speaker 1: Early in negotiations, it was very much we're gonna, you know,

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Speaker 1: we're gonna keep this in house, like basically like keep

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Speaker 1: it cute. And then I think just things just weren't

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Speaker 1: going the way we expected it to. Considering the explosion

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Speaker 1: of the WNBA in the last few years, I think

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Speaker 1: it kind of caught everybody off guard that the league

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Speaker 1: was just kind of like, yeah, like we're doing amazing,

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Speaker 1: y'all are doing amazing, but like we still want to

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Speaker 1: like keep y'all in this little corner over here that

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Speaker 1: we've had y'all in for the last twenty five years.

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Speaker 1: So slowly and slowly and slowly, we've kind of brought

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Speaker 1: it more out to the public.

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Speaker 3: Now the players in the league have thirty more days

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Speaker 3: to try to see eye to eye. In a statement,

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Speaker 3: the WNBPA said, quote, while we believe negotiations would be

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Speaker 3: further along, the players are more focused, united, and determined

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Speaker 3: than ever to reach an agreement that reflects their value

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Speaker 3: and undeniable impact on the league. The WNBA says it

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Speaker 3: stands ready to continue negotiations, adding it hopes the union

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Speaker 3: does the same so that both parties can quote finalize

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Speaker 3: a mutually beneficial new CBA as quickly as possible. Lexi

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Speaker 3: Brown so she hopes to find a way to work

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Speaker 3: with the league and stay on good terms with leadership.

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Speaker 3: One day she could see herself being one of them.

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Speaker 1: I can just speak for myself, like, I do want

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Speaker 1: to work in front office one day, whether that's in

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Speaker 1: the league or for a team, And I feel like

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Speaker 1: the best way to help grow the league when you're

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Speaker 1: done is to be a part of the higher ups.

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Speaker 1: So that's something that I've always dreamt of doing, as

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Speaker 1: being on the other side of the table in these negotiations.

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Speaker 1: Having a player's perspective. I feel like it could be

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Speaker 1: super beneficial.

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Speaker 3: This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm David Gerrat.

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Speaker 3: The show is hosted by me Wanha and Sarah Holder.

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Speaker 3: The show is made by Aaron Edwards, David Fox, Eleanor

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Speaker 3: Harrison Dengate, Patti Hirsch, Rachel Lewis, Krisky, Naomi Julia Press,

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Speaker 3: and Taka Yasuzawa. To get more from the Big Take

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Speaker 3: and unlimited access to all of Bloomberg dot com, subscribe

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Speaker 3: today at Bloomberg dot com Slash Podcast offer. Thanks for listening.

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Speaker 3: We'll be back on Monday.

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Speaker 2: Thank you much