How WNBPA’s All-Star shirts got here to be amid CBA negotiations

THE NOW-LEGENDARY 72-hour livestream from Stud Budz duo Courtney Williams and Natisha Hiedeman left little or no unseen from the 2025 WNBA All-Star Weekend in Indianapolis. However the Minnesota Lynx teammates’ Twitch stream did not absolutely seize one of many weekend’s most pivotal moments.

Nneka Ogwumike, president of the Ladies’s Nationwide Basketball Gamers Affiliation, was preparing for the WNBPA’s game-day breakfast on the Intercontinental Resort in downtown Indianapolis, when she noticed Williams and Hiedeman’s social media supervisor, the one tasked with holding the cellphone for the weekend-long stream. Williams and Hiedeman had despatched him downstairs to convey again meals, and he was having hassle getting previous WNBPA safety.

Ogwumike took issues into her personal palms. She went upstairs to discover a hungover Williams and Hiedeman nonetheless in mattress, the place — in entrance of the Stud Budz’s 73,000 Twitch followers — she implored Williams, an All-Star reserve, to stand up for a gamers assembly in 10 minutes.

It isn’t unusual for gamers to bail on the PA’s annual game-day gathering, which, a supply near the union stated, was began years in the past as a response to the All-Stars not getting consumed recreation day. Working from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m., it is hardly interesting to stand up that early coming off a protracted night time out. However this time, issues had been completely different.

In between stops on the omelet station and muffin show, the gamers used the tail finish of the breakfast to finalize their plans to put on black shirts that learn “Pay Us What You Owe Us” whereas warming up for Saturday’s All-Star Sport. As soon as the shirts had been revealed earlier than tip-off, the assertion traveled shortly, igniting debate across the points which were simmering behind the scenes as gamers and the WNBA have interaction in negotiations on a brand new collective bargaining settlement that either side anticipate to be transformative.

Two days earlier, over 40 gamers had proven up for an in-person bargaining session with WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert, members of the league’s CBA committee and league counsel — a gathering some gamers described after as a “wasted alternative.” It was meant as an illustration of power-in-numbers, however for over per week, sources with information of the union’s planning advised ESPN the 22 All-Stars had been discussing a much more public method of utilizing the All-Star stage to make an announcement.

Prior to now, union leaders might need given an inventory of speaking factors to gamers to reference once they had been inevitably requested concerning the negotiations and the way they hoped the brand new CBA would possibly mirror the WNBA’s exponential progress in income and cultural resonance over the previous few years as younger stars like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers entered the league. However sources stated the gamers agreed it was essential to make one clear, concise and collective assertion.

The concept of an illustration, and finally doing one with shirts, had been mentioned by the manager council and informally among the many All-Stars for the reason that full rosters had been determined. Everybody concerned favored the thought, however agreed it needed to be unanimous. Which is why Ogwumike was so decided to get up Williams, a member of Workforce Collier, and get her to the breakfast assembly.

If any of the 22 All-Stars objected to the thought, they would not have gone by means of with it. However by the top of the night time, it wasn’t simply the gamers’ solidarity that was unmistakable. As “pay them” chants rang from followers all through Gainbridge Fieldhouse when Engelbert introduced Napheesa Collier the MVP trophy, it set the stage because the story of the second half of the WNBA season as the present CBA’s late October expiration date looms.

“I do know it is solely the midway level of the 12 months,” a league supply stated, “however it might very properly be the most important second in sports activities for 2025.”

HEADING INTO THE All-Star break, the union had two important goals: to get as many gamers as attainable to the in-person bargaining session with the league on Thursday so they might hear the league’s place — and the league might hear theirs — and to make use of the sport’s platform to its best affect.

The union labored to get excessive turnout for what could be the primary in-person CBA assembly with gamers since December, finally yielding a bunch of over 40 members — veterans from Ogwumike, Breanna Stewart and Sydney Colson to newcomers Clark, Reese and Bueckers, and a few gamers who flew into city simply to attend the assembly. So many gamers turned out that they needed to convey extra chairs to the desk. The collective displaying harkened again to their all-players assembly to debate social justice points and learn how to transfer ahead as a unit in the course of the 2020 season, which was performed in a bubble in Florida as a result of COVID-19 pandemic.

In the meantime, the thought of constructing a stand on the All-Star Sport — in entrance of a sellout crowd and through a prime-time tipoff on ABC — had been brewing properly earlier than gamers arrived in Indianapolis.

It began with conversations with govt committee members, then expanded to convey aboard the opposite All-Stars as soon as rosters had been decided. It helped that 4 members of the union’s high management — Ogwumike, first vice chairman Kelsey Plum and vice presidents Collier and Stewart — had been tabbed as All-Stars, three of them on the early finish as starters.

In response to league sources, gamers tossed round numerous concepts — equivalent to holding the ball to expire the shot clock. They needed one thing that did not require an evidence. That could not be taken out of context, misconstrued unintentionally or intentionally. Understanding there might be repercussions to something radical, they shied away from something too disruptive.

The gamers gravitated towards the easy but direct assertion of sporting shirts — in spite of everything, as one participant advised ESPN, “We all know greatest learn how to do one thing with a T-shirt.”

T-shirts have been a car of activism within the WNBA for years. Within the 2020 bubble, gamers donned “Vote Warnock” T-shirts to oppose then-Atlanta Dream proprietor Kelly Loeffler and lift the profile of Raphael Warnock, who was finally elected U.S. senator in Georgia, serving to flip the Senate to an successfully Democratic majority. That very same season, members of the Washington Mystics wore shirts with bullet holes drawn on them to protest the taking pictures of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by police, earlier than that night time’s video games had been postponed.

Speaking CBA negotiations and the way far the WNBPA has come because it was fashioned in 1998. pic.twitter.com/LNoIofagWq

— Rebecca Lobo (@RebeccaLobo) July 22, 2025

The league hasn’t at all times responded properly to such shows. In 2016, the WNBA initially fined groups and the gamers who wore shirts in assist of the Black Lives Matter motion earlier than a leaguewide outcry prompted then-WNBA president Lisa Borders to rescind them.

The brand new CBA will deal with quite a lot of subjects, all the pieces from growth draft guidelines to household planning and retirement advantages. However the situation on the crux of the negotiations to this point, sources stated, entails how the gamers’ share of the enterprise is set.

Merely put, the gamers desire a system that permits them to earn a larger share of the income pie because the enterprise continues to develop. And to try this, they first need to understand how a lot income every workforce is bringing in.

Ogwumike stated Saturday in Indianapolis that the league is proposing a system with a hard and fast share, whereas the gamers need “a greater share the place our salaries develop with the enterprise, and never only a fastened share over time.”

“We see the expansion of the league, and because it stands, the present wage system will not be actually paying us what we’re owed,” Ogwumike stated after the sport. “And we would like to have the ability to have that fair proportion shifting ahead, particularly as we see the entire funding moving into, and we would like to have the ability to have our salaries mirrored in a construction that is sensible for us.”

For instance, gamers need an evidence for why the fast will increase in valuations of franchises — the Las Vegas Aces had been bought for $2 million in 2021 however at the moment are valued at $310 million, in accordance with Forbes, whereas current growth charges are coming in at $250 million after the Golden State Valkyries paid $50 million in October 2023 — cannot result in larger income that then filters again to them.

“The gamers are what’s constructing this model and this league,” Collier stated. “There isn’t a league with out the gamers, and previous, current, those arising, they’re those which have put within the blood, sweat and tears for the brand new cash that is coming in. And so, we really feel we’re owed a chunk of the pie that we helped create.”

This sentiment was the genesis of the assertion they ended up printing on their warmup shirts, which had been made previous to arriving in Indianapolis. Some have speculated that it got here from a lyric in Jay-Z’s 2001 hit single “Izzo (H.O.V.A.)” that comprises the road, “pay us such as you owe us.”

However in accordance with sources with information of the discussions, the assertion was a nod to merchandise from the Nationwide Ladies’s Legislation Heart, a associate group and frequent useful resource for WNBPA, that reads “Pay Me What You Owe Me.”

The WNBPA breakfast was their alternative to seal the choice and put their plan into motion. From the beginning, the gamers knew they weren’t going to do a collective demonstration until all of them agreed. The one situation was that there have been All-Stars lacking from that gathering, notably from Workforce Clark, as they recovered from the occasions of the weekend and events from the night time earlier than.

In response to sources, no less than one member of Workforce Clark who attended the assembly was entrusted to make sure the message bought delivered to the All-Stars who weren’t on the breakfast. However to substantiate everybody was on board with the plan, Ogwumike, Collier and Stewart visited the Workforce Clark locker room earlier than the sport.

They had been, and 22 of essentially the most seen gamers within the league — younger and outdated, first-timers to 10-time All-Stars — unzipped their warmups to disclose the shock message, sending shock waves to these watching in individual and on TV, all through Indianapolis and past.

“It was tremendous essential that all of them determined, ‘Sure, we’ll do that,'” one league supply stated. “Caitlin did it, Angel did it. They had been each on the [Thursday] assembly. Paige did it. They’re purchased in, they’re severe about this, and so they’re unified.”

THE PLAYERS MIGHT have been hopeful that the group of 16,000-plus in Gainbridge Fieldhouse would assist their pregame show. However they could not have anticipated the response they might get from these inside the sector and the best way the gamers’ CBA battle grew to become the dominant storyline popping out of All-Star Weekend — one thing they imagine may help put stress on the league as soon as negotiations resume.

“The followers making that chant,” Collier stated postgame, “that gave me chills.”

“That fan assist,” one supply near the initiative added, “it launched a valve of stress for them.”

On social media the response was simply as swift — and powerful — because it was inside the sector.

Help got here from numerous ends of the political spectrum, from former first girl and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton to Barstool Sports activities founder Dave Portnoy.

I see a lot of morons making an attempt to behave like WNBA gamers do not deserve extra money. They’re throwing round this “misplaced 50 million” quantity that no person even is aware of the place it comes from. The funds of the league are a multitude, tied in with NBA and purposely murkey. The homeowners do not…

— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) July 20, 2025

However the subsequent day’s information cycle was very completely different. As a substitute of a dialogue about how gamers ought to profit from the expansion of the league, or how the league will change as soon as all of the free brokers who signed one-year contracts this winter in anticipation of a brand new CBA might be free brokers once more, an offhand remark from Plum spawned a really completely different dialogue.

At her postgame information convention Plum tried to lighten the temper. Plum, as first vice chairman of the participant’s affiliation, had been concerned within the planning of the T-shirts from the start, sources stated. When she quipped, “to not tattletale, however zero members of Workforce Clark had been very current for [the Saturday morning meeting],” laughing as she stated it, she assumed everybody understood that she was joking about partying too laborious forward of the early morning assembly.

With out context Plum’s feedback landed as both a shot at Clark or as a scarcity of solidarity within the assertion — the form of misunderstanding the only, unified gesture was purported to remove.

The WNBA common season resumed Tuesday with 10 groups in motion. Basketball carried on, enterprise as normal. However all eyes over the following three months might be fastened on what occurs behind the scenes.

Gamers expressed frustration that Thursday’s assembly — probably the final alternative to get so many gamers across the bargaining desk — did not yield extra progress because the clock ticks towards the CBA’s expiration date. Making issues much more well timed is {that a} two-team growth draft is meant to occur in December with the arrival of groups in Toronto and Portland, adopted by the overwhelming majority of veterans hitting free company in January.

Each side have stated they’re hopeful they will get a deal carried out and keep away from a piece stoppage. However for now, WNBA gamers — not simply the 22 All-Stars however the 130 or so others — should determine how they need to construct off the assertion they made and the assist they garnered. And see whether or not they can flip Saturday’s momentum into lasting change.

“It was an amazing, actually, actually nice response,” a league supply stated. “I believe that fuels them for the following time.”