The WNBA has experienced unprecedented success in the last two years, with record ratings and star players who have broken through to mainstream audiences. Women’s basketball as a whole is in a great place, as there’s also a deep field of outstanding collegiate teams and the upstart Unrivaled league to keep fans entertained in the offseason. Despite that success, or maybe because of it, fans are worried that the WNBA may be heading for a lockout.
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There’s less than a week for the players association and the league to find an agreement on a new collective bargaining deal. Though there’s hope that the two sides can find some common ground, the tenor of the rhetoric that’s gone back and forth in the last year suggests that they just don’t see eye to eye.
Former No. 4 overall pick Kysre Gondrezick appeared on the 7PM in Brooklyn podcast this week, and she spoke about the players’ side of the negotiations; what they believe they deserve and what they’re hoping to accomplish in light of the growth of the league.
“Absolutely I think that we are deserving to be able to get paid for what we do,” she said. “We have a very rigorous schedule, just like our male counterparts, but we’re still building, and we’re growing.”
Gondrezick pointed out how the salary cap grows in the NBA each year as the league continues to grow, and said that she hopes the same thing can happen for the WNBA.
“As we continue to generate more of an audience … being able to have that distributed equally and deservingly so, but just being patient with understanding that growth and greatness takes time,” she advised.
“If we can embrace that as a community, I’m sure when the time is right, we’ll find the balance of what we deserve and where we’re trying to build,” Gondrezick noted.
Both sides could opt to extend the deadline before a lockout occurs if they can’t reach a deal by November 30. They’ve already done that once, as the initial deadline was the end of October but got extended 30 days.
The players are seeking a larger portion of the league’s revenue than they currently have. The league’s latest known offer in this summer included a provision that top players could earn as much as $1.1 million and league minimum players would be paid just over $220,000, both of which are nearly quadruple last season’s numbers.
The players rejected that, though, and if they can’t come to terms soon, there’s a chance that next season could be shortened, pushed back or canceled entirely. “Would I want to see a lockout happen to get what the women feel like we deserve?” Gondrezick asked. “No, I think that there can be a happy medium.”
The WNBA has picked up legions of new fans in recent years, and they’re hoping that happy medium can be found, too.
