Angel Reese, Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers Join Together Against League
The WNBA and its players are trying to fix a bad situation. That won’t happen, however, without the W making some concessions.
Back on October 21, 2024, players believed it would be in their best interest to opt out of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Originally, said agreement had an expiration date that was set in 2027. But, an early opt-out allowed them to end things ahead of then.
Once that took place, all hell broke loose. Although they’ve had a number of conclaves, neither side has been able to work out a deal.
After another failed attempt to hash things out during this year’s All-Star break, the league decided that less is more. Instead of having nearly 40 players attend their meeting like in Indianapolis, the league brought in arguably three of the most popular players in the game today.
Angel Reese, Caitlin Clark and newcomer Paige Bueckers.
The reasoning behind this isn’t quite clear, but according to ESPN, Reese, Clark and Bueckers didn’t deviate from the plan of the overall group.
"It was super important that they all decided, 'Yes, we'll do this.' Caitlin did it, Angel did it. They were both at the [Thursday] meeting. Paige did it,” an ESPN report recently stated when discussing how their meeting went. “They are bought in, they're serious about this, and they're unified."
For now, the players are in wait-and-see mode. The biggest issue as of now is the percentage of revenue being divided amongst the league and its players.
Currently, WNBA players are receiving 9.3% of the total revenue. In comparison, NBA players receive roughly 49%-51%.
Publicly, WNBA players haven’t said much, but Kelsey Plum is one of the few who voiced her opinion. From her point of view, she loathes the comparisons between her league and the multi-billion-dollar conglomerate that is the NBA. However, if comparisons must be made, she wants everyone to look at the facts.
“We’re young. We’re only 25 years in, the NBA is at 100,” said Plum during an interview that was posted on justwomenssports.com. “Where we’re at, at 25, we’re way past where the NBA was. We don’t forget that though, we compare where we’re at now to where the NBA is now.”
A graduate of Queens College, Hans has covered practically every sport you can think of. The NBA, NFL, Boxing, UFC, Tennis, MLB, even Rugby! His work has appeared in various places such as Bleacher Report, USA Today, Fox Sports, and FanSided. When he isn’t reporting or writing on sports, he’s watching it. He also enjoys boxing, lifting weights at the gym, and debating anything sports-related.