The Conflict at the Core: Why WNBA Players Are Contemplating the Rejection of a Historic, Multi-Million Dollar Offer
The tone in the room is not one of elation or finality; it’s one of deepening disbelief and raw irritation [00:27]. For months, the WNBA Players Association (WNBPA) has argued fiercely for recognition, revenue sharing, and contracts that reflect the unprecedented explosion in the league’s popularity. Now, the WNBA has responded with a Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) proposal that is nothing short of a “Godfather” offer, a deal so lucrative it should have instantly wrapped the negotiations and secured the financial future of hundreds of athletes.

The league is proposing a max salary soaring past $1.1 million and minimum salaries nearly tripling from $78,000 to $220,000 [00:37]. The average player would walk away with around $460,000 [00:46]. This isn’t a small bump; it’s a transformational agreement that honors the momentum generated by stars like Caitlin Clark and A’ja Wilson. And yet, the players’ union is reportedly considering turning it down, leaving the entire 2026 season hanging in the balance.

The central question is not what more the WNBPA is trying to squeeze out of the owners, but who is truly leading the negotiations, and for whose benefit? The unsettling answer lies in a staggering, and increasingly impossible-to-ignore, conflict of interest that has weaponized the negotiation process. The very people tasked with securing the best deal for the WNBA’s 144 players also have deep financial stakes in the success of rival leagues fighting to dismantle the WNBA’s market share.

The Unprecedented Offer That Blew the Ceiling Off
To understand the current tension, one must look at the starting point. Under the current CBA, which was set to expire on November 30th, the highest salary a player could earn topped out at a paltry $241,000 [01:47]. Rookies were locked into a minimum of $78,000 [01:32]. In many cases, this forced players—even elite ones—to play year-round overseas just to secure a financially viable career.

The new proposal doesn’t just nudge these figures; it explodes them:

Max Salary: Rockets past $1.1 million, an increase of nearly 400% [01:05, 01:58].

Rookie/Minimum Salary: Jumps from $78,000 to $220,000, an increase of 182% [01:58].

Average Salary: Projected at approximately $460,000 [00:46].

Beyond the raw dollar signs, the WNBA has also included the crucial element the players have demanded for years: real revenue sharing [02:50]. This is not symbolic PR fluff; it is a structural mechanism that ensures player compensation grows in direct correlation with the league’s economic health. The league is essentially handing the WNBPA everything it claimed to need: the structure, the stability, and the massive salary jumps [03:10].

This unprecedented offer is the direct result of the Caitlin Clark effect, a financial shockwave that has shattered TV ratings, driven ticket prices to historic highs, and poured corporate sponsorship dollars into a league that has struggled for 28 years to achieve mainstream visibility. The proposal is the league’s recognition that the time has come, and the players deserve compensation that reflects the value they are creating [12:42].

If this offer is not accepted, the problem is not the money—it’s the players negotiating the deal.

The Rival League Shadow: Betrayal at the Bargaining Table
The true scandal unfolding behind the scenes is the business interests of the three most powerful figures leading the WNBPA’s negotiations: President Nika Mühl, and Vice Presidents Brianna Stewart and Napheesa Collier. All three have financial ties to leagues designed to compete with, and potentially undermine, the WNBA [03:24].

Stewart and Collier are co-founders of Unrivaled [03:39], a new, highly-paid three-on-three league launching in January that seeks to capture the attention of WNBA players during the offseason. Mühl has accepted investment from Project B [03:33], a more ambitious venture positioning itself as a potential full-season alternative to the WNBA.

This creates a spectacular and troubling conflict of interest [04:30]. If the WNBA were to ratify the $1.1 million max salary and the $220,000 minimums, the financial incentive for any player to look elsewhere for income would evaporate [04:58]. Suddenly, Unrivaled—which offers $100,000 for a six-week run—becomes little more than an enjoyable off-season workout, no longer a financial necessity [08:27]. Project B, which aims to be a full-season alternative, loses its entire selling point.

The calculus is chilling: for Stewart, Collier, and Mühl’s alternative ventures to truly succeed and become life-changing financial payoffs, the WNBA cannot become so financially powerful that players stop needing to look elsewhere [04:50]. They are, quite literally, incentivized to stifle the growth of the WNBA’s salary structure to ensure their personal businesses remain attractive and viable alternatives [17:04].

This raises the most painful question of all: Are these leaders negotiating for the benefit of all WNBA players, or are they attempting to sabotage the league’s most lucrative moment to boost their own personal investment portfolios?

The Victims: Role Players and the Next Generation
If the WNBPA walks away from this deal, the victims of this internal conflict won’t be the millionaire stars with massive endorsement deals—it will be the role players, the rookies, and the veterans who rely entirely on the WNBA for their professional lives [10:57].

Stars like Stewart and Clark would be fine. Unrivaled, Project B, or international leagues would craft massive individual contracts for them [10:25]. But the league itself, the system painstakingly built over nearly three decades—the TV deals on ABC and ESPN, the corporate sponsors finally investing seriously—all of that disappears if the 2026 season is canceled [10:40].

The players who truly suffer are those scraping by on minimum contracts, the young women fighting for rotation minutes, the veterans clinging to a few more seasons to secure their pensions, and the talented college stars like Juju Watkins who will be draft-eligible in 2026 [07:02]. If the season goes dark, these players are forced into a brutal decision: sacrifice development by sitting out, or jump to a fragmented, unproven league like Project B, risking their long-term viability by skipping the sports premiere platform [06:54].

As one source bluntly put it, the negotiating executive board is not doing these players a favor; they are taking money out of their mouths [05:47]. This potential rejection is not an act of principled resistance; it is an act of betrayal against the 144 roster spots that make the WNBA the central, unifying stage for women’s basketball [15:16].

The WNBA’s Strategic Power Move
For the WNBA, the $1.1 million offer is a strategic, defensive power move designed to protect the league’s supremacy [09:12]. Rival leagues, like Unrivaled, are only attractive because the previous WNBA contracts were so low. Unrivaled’s $100,000 for six weeks suddenly looks far less appealing when the WNBA guarantees $220,000 for a full season plus massive long-term benefits [08:51].

The league is using this deal to price rival ventures out of the market, sending a clear message: “We’re paying our stars amounts you simply cannot match, and we are paying our role players enough that they no longer need you to survive financially” [09:26].

This strategy ensures that the league’s momentum, fueled by Clark’s undeniable popularity, is reinvested directly into the core product, securing the next generation of talent and establishing the WNBA as the only viable, high-paying, long-term destination for women’s basketball.

The WNBPA successfully opted out of the old CBA in 2024, strategically recognizing the league’s momentum and improved finances [12:50]. They pushed for transformative improvements, and now the league is offering them exactly what they asked for: substantial salary increases, a viable minimum wage that removes the need for overseas play, and a revenue-sharing structure that guarantees future growth [13:06].

If the executive board rejects this $1.1 million offer in favor of vague statements about wanting a better “value,” they risk sacrificing the enormous mainstream attention and financial stability the WNBA has spent 28 years building [16:14]. The question for Stewart, Collier, and Mühl is simple, and the deadline of November 30th makes it urgent: are they negotiating for the collective good of the WNBA players, or for the private success of their alternative ventures? The league’s future, and the careers of hundreds of players, hinges on that agonizing choice.