Phee: "We have worst leadership"

[BlacJacMac]

NBA players can make more than 60 mill per year.
WBA players can’t currently make 300K.

Its even worse when you shift the narrative away from NBA stars.

For the 2024-25 season, the minimum salary for an NBA player with zero years of service was $1,157,153.

The last player on an NBA bench makes, at a minimum, over 4x what the top WNBA players make.

Hell, a player on a 2-way contract in the NBA this past year made $578,577...

[Doctor MJ]

You guys can support the league's exploitation of the players all you want. That's your right but I completely disagree. Phee told the truth today.

The league needs them. The players don't need the league. The WNBA is literally the low wage offseason league of woman's hoops. She brought up Unrivaled to show how dogsh*t the league is.

With her advertising clout and immense popularity/fandom, Clark could step away from the WNBA to start up her own competing league and put them out of business virtually overnight.

The media dollars and ticket sales will always follow the talent.



Sent from my N152DL using RealGM mobile app

I think you vastly underestimate how much money it takes to build something like the WNBA. If she starts her own league, she won't have the backing of the NBA, and billionaire owners.

So to me the thing to look at when considering what a rival league would look like is something like Unrivaled.

The WNBA bakes in all the stuff that the NBA has which involves tons of cost that literally is unnecessary in the television era. You literally just need a court somewhere and TV cameras, and then the players to fly in once to start the season and once to fly out.

Are you going to earn WNBA level revenue doing this? No.

But you don't need WNBA level revenue to be able to pay players more than the W currently pays them, and that's the achilles heel that people don't tend to think about - and I don't think the WNBA itself has really thought about.

The reason why each team plays 82 games per year in the NBA while criss-crossing the country isn't because it's necessary for television, but because at one time attendance-related revenues were the most important thing. Because the NBA has let these pre-TV optimization continue on indefinitely, they're ripe to having their legs cut out from under them by rivals that chop out the unnecessary expenses.

Further, the NBA/WNBA earning more revenue than these rivals is cold comfort, because any kind of contraction to an established league will cause tons of chaos. If all of a sudden the NBA has to grapple with an X% drop in revenue each year, they're going to have eventually respond by killing jobs and cutting salaries, and when that happens there will be all sorts of labor conflict.

I worry that the W doesn't recognize this and because of the stuff Unrivaled doesn't do, thinks Unrivaled is not an viable long-term threat, but if Unrivaled pays more than what you pay, it's absolutely going to be a threat.

[Doctor MJ]

Great points Doctor MJ!

After my first viewing of Phee's words I was pretty shocked she went after the commissioner and the leadership. Right after a tough series, after a controversial play call (AT stripping Phee), after Reeves getting suspended, and getting bounced in the playoffs.

Going after Commissioner and leadership before CBA negotations? What is the advantage of doing that?

So I think it’s important to keep in mind that this took place in an exit interview.

Players get interviewed, they get asked questions, and they are supposed to answer honestly.

Now, it might have been wiser for her to play things closer to the vest, but I’m generally not that bothered by players responding with honesty.

To be clear: it’s possible all this was pre-meditated propaganda, and if so, then presumably Phee and her allies do see an advantage.

But it’s also possible right now behind the scenes people are saying to Phee “Uh, we talked about why you shouldn’t talk about this stuff off the cuff. You’ve just made the WNBPA’s job harder. “

And while players publicly are supporting Phee, it’s possible behind the scenes that below-Unrivaled level players are seeing red right now and want to split from Phee.

But, all that aside, I’m inclined to believe Phee is telling the truth about what the Commish said to her, and I quite understand boiling over at the idea of keeping secrets for those belittling you.


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It was in an exit interview, but she brought in a prepared statement and asked to read it before any questions. This was premeditated, so I think the only thing to argue is whether this is coming off the emotional reaction to a painful, unexpected series loss (and an injury that was a big part of that loss), or whether Phee was going to do this at some point this offseason, no matter what.

I find the timing is a bit unfortunate. Imagine a similar speech, but after the Lynx has hoisted a championship, one year after getting done pretty by officials in the finals, and in this hypothetical, surviving a brutally physical matchup with the Mercury. Heck even after beating the Mercury and making the speech before the finals. Obviously this opportunity was not available to Phee.

(To be clear, I fully support Phee and the players in all of this, and it seems like her message is being rallied around by the players and fans, which is super important.)

Because of the timing, I wish the main point of emphasis was not about the inconsistent officiating. Her later points and claims- relaying Cathy Engelbert's responses to her questions last offseason- were powerful attacks at Engelbert and the league. The point about young player salaries, and the alleged response... fantastically paint Engelbert as a villain. I think Phee making it about officials, could allow her opponents to try to paint her as having an emotional reaction to a tough loss.

Anyways, this is clearly going to be a contentious negotiation. The players need to go HEAVY at the league and the owners, because this is a serious moment of leverage as the WNBA becomes the first new sports league in over 50 years to create this level of success.

Complete aside(!), but I thought the Lynx's offensive strategy against the Mercury in game 4 was atrocious. Yes, the officials allowed a brutal amount of physicality, and this was probably not to the Lynx's advantage), BUT... the Lynx stopped trying to find mismatches for Phee, and mostly let her attack Alyssa Thomas one-on-one. Alyssa Thomas is bigger, stronger, and probably quicker than Phee. Phee has a length advantage, and can shoot over her a bit, but it's tough sledding to go at AT all night. Anytime Phee got a switch (onto Bonner, Kah, Whitcomb etc.) it was an auto-bucket. There are 2 reasons Phee did not go to the line in game 4:
- the refs allowed AT a ton of body contact. That kind of body contact is harder to call than arm contact.
- Phee primarily draws fouls by being too powerful and/or too quick for her opponents. Phee isn't going to live at the line guarded by AT.

I stand corrected about the nature of the response in the exit interview.

I'm also not in love with the timing, because I agree that trying to tie the "big problem" to officiating issues is not the right approach. Maybe Phee was going to do this in her exit interview no matter what happened, but in the wake of Reeve's verbal barrage about officiating, I'd have postponed the big callout even if only for a week or two.

As I say that, it's possible that closeness of the negotiation deadline made the players feel like they needed to get public about all this stuff right now, and maybe that all makes sense.

Re: Lynx offensive strategy. Appreciate your insights, and yeah, choosing to attack AT one-on-one just doesn't seem like a good plan generally.

Something I will note is that the Lynx shot the 3 terribly in this series, and I'd expect shooting luck is going to play a pretty big role in these short series.

To put down some data:

Lynx RS Team 3P% 37.8
Merc RS Opp 3P% 34.0

Lynx 3P% in Merc series 29.5

I think the Mercury defense was outstanding to be clear, and I also understand the Liberty shot even worse in the first round, but I'm skeptical that the Mercury can expect to keep playoff opponents shooting below 30% from 3 on average.

So then, if the Aces can keep shooting the trey basically like they've been doing (considerably better than RS average), they probably win the series, while if their 3P% falls through the floor, the Mercury probably win.

[hermes]

what the heck, cathy needs to go...like yesterday

shoot the owners should probably fire her tomorrow, i mean they might all believe what she said but its one thing to have those conversations in a closed-door owners meeting and another completely to say it directly to a player's face. what was she thinking? this is a huge PR nightmare for the league, at a really bad time to have PR nightmares

if i were the players, in the cba negotiations meetings, i'd put replacing the commissioner at the top of the list of demands. above pay, above all the rest. what a despicable attitude for a sports commissioner to have. how does the league expect any of the players to come back next year now that this is out if there aren't significant changes?

[Ice Man]

Someone on First Take cited $40 million in loses.

Such figures are impossible to understand from the outside. Even if profit/loss figures are available, they are incomplete. For example, I saw some numbers showing that 28 of 30 NBA teams had operating profits in the 2023-24 season, with the median profit being about $70 million. Well OK ... but operating profits occur before depreciation (which is not a cash expense for that particular year but is a genuine cost, in the sense that it takes into capital expenditures that were previously made, and they DID require cash), before interest (which is both and a cash expense and accounting cost), and before taxes (which is also both). So, those operating income figures really don't tell us if those teams booking $70 million in profit made money. It's quite possible that when the cost of capital expenditures, interest payments, and taxes are in, they did not.

On the other hand, NBA franchise values are growing rapidly. Is that because the teams have high current earnings potential, if management chooses to run them differently, or is it because they are viewed as a long-term asset that eventually might throw off cash? Or it is because they are prestige assets that are owned for reasons other than profitability?

You got me. Same for the WNBA numbers. As outsiders, we just don't know.

[DOT]

Someone on First Take cited $40 million in loses.

Such figures are impossible to understand from the outside. Even if profit/loss figures are available, they are incomplete. For example, I saw some numbers showing that 28 of 30 NBA teams had operating profits in the 2023-24 season, with the median profit being about $70 million. Well OK ... but operating profits occur before depreciation (which is not a cash expense for that particular year but is a genuine cost, in the sense that it takes into capital expenditures that were previously made, and they DID require cash), before interest (which is both and a cash expense and accounting cost), and before taxes (which is also both). So, those operating income figures really don't tell us if those teams booking $70 million in profit made money. It's quite possible that when the cost of capital expenditures, interest payments, and taxes are in, they did not.

On the other hand, NBA franchise values are growing rapidly. Is that because the teams have high current earnings potential, if management chooses to run them differently, or is it because they are viewed as a long-term asset that eventually might throw off cash? Or it is because they are prestige assets that are owned for reasons other than profitability?

You got me. Same for the WNBA numbers. As outsiders, we just don't know.

Every single business tells its union it's losing money to avoid giving pay raises

Especially sports are really good at hiding profits

I'm just gonna point out 2 things, 1st is that 2 different groups of people are offering $325 million to buy one of the worst teams in the league, 2nd is the WNBA themselves offered $250 million to buy that team, meaning they have that much money on hand or can easily raise that much money. Neither of those things indicate the league is unprofitable.

[MrDollarBills]

CC just publicly backed Phee. Cathy is DONE and I expect a strike or lock out to be imminent

[MrDollarBills]

Someone on First Take cited $40 million in loses. They didn't say for which time period though.

Some teams have folded but now the league is expanding. It seems like the financial picture for the league is in flux.

ESPN is a mouthpiece for the NBA. I don't trust anything they say especially after Pablo Torre basically made them look like fools.

Publish the documentation if the losses are that substantial

[Doctor MJ]

Someone on First Take cited $40 million in loses. They didn't say for which time period though.

Some teams have folded but now the league is expanding. It seems like the financial picture for the league is in flux.

ESPN is a mouthpiece for the NBA. I don't trust anything they say especially after Pablo Torre basically made them look like fools.

Publish the documentation if the losses are that substantial

So, I AND-1'ed you here but I'll also push back.

This article came out from ESPN after Phee's comments:

Wetzel: Collier comments reflect WNBA's core problem: How it sees Caitlin Clark

This then to say that I think it makes complete sense to distrust ESPN as having general interests other than short-term corporate goals, and I believe ESPN has actively been doing net damage to the NBA community since they shuttered Grantland in 2015.

But, it's not because ESPN is in lockstep with the NBA, and in fact the NBA has been frustrated with the negative tone toward the NBA that's come to dominate ESPN's coverage of the league by SAS and his copycats. While ESPN isn't trying to do damage to the NBA or any other organization that is a partner, they aren't primarily focused on preventing that damage either. They're in it for the clicks.

And while that's a bad thing generally, the good news is that ESPN will also have articles like what I just linked to that go counter to the W's preferred narrative, and so in this case, I appreciate ESPN.

[wco81]

Someone on First Take cited $40 million in loses. They didn't say for which time period though.

Some teams have folded but now the league is expanding. It seems like the financial picture for the league is in flux.

ESPN is a mouthpiece for the NBA. I don't trust anything they say especially after Pablo Torre basically made them look like fools.

Publish the documentation if the losses are that substantial

I agree that WNBA, as all sports leagues, will never open their books.

But I don't think it was in dispute that not too long ago, there were empty arenas and NBA was subsidizing the WNBA to keep it going.

WNBA players played in foreign leagues in the offseason or just stayed in those leagues rather than come back for the WNBA season.

We will see if the increase in popularity is sustainable.

As far as the commissioner, they can get rid of her but ultimately the owners and the NBA will have a much bigger say in the new CBA.

They played 44 games so they seem to be slowly increasing the length of the season. If they want to increase revenues, they're probably going to have to get to 60 games or more. Then you might start to get the same complaints which some people make of the NBA about the regular season being too long, too many injuries, fans becoming bored, etc.

[Doctor MJ]

CC just publicly backed Phee. Cathy is DONE and I expect a strike or lock out to be imminent

Clark backing Phee is indeed a killer blow for the Commish and her cabal, and I'll be very surpised if there's not a new Commish within the next year. A change might occur right after the Finals as you say, but time will tell.

Regarding a coming work stoppage, yeah, that's where it seems like things are going right now. If it doesn't happen, it'll be because the WNBA off-season is quite long and so there are still many months before the "work start" normally happens.

I still think that giving W players largely what they want should be a super-simple thing this go 'round, but I think the WNBA's management has painted themselves into a corner.

How do you play hardball with the players while greenlighting a ton of expansion teams?
How do you not play hardball with the players if the expansion teams were felt they were assured financial terms based on the past?

This is the sort of situation that you really need to anticipate ahead of time, and the WNBA didn't. It's not a horrible sadistic sin on their part, but it's also a predictable crisis at a time of rapid growth in popularity, and since this is the first time of rapid growth in popularity in the history of the W, it also makes it the single most important moment to be prepared for... and they just weren't.

I find myself continuing to ruminate on Cathy's "on their knees" quote. I'd expect if it were completely false, she's say so, but instead she just said her words were mischaracterized. Thing is, while this can be true to some degree - I don't think Cathy has this job because she wants to screw over female basketball players - it just plays in to exactly the the issue of how it seems the Clark phenomenon is perceived in NBA circles. The WNBA wants this moment to be the time for them to be taking a victory lap for keeping the torch of pro women's basketball alive in the US through dark times, and that's not what this moment is, or honestly, was ever going to be.

I've previously talked a lot on the GB about the nature of a sport become a major mainstream spectator sport with the key thesis being: It's about breakout stars. Fans are human beings, and for any sport that wasn't already super-popular, they tend to become fans of specific human beings before they become fans of teams.

That means that as an organization, you can position yourself to be the interest that "has the tiger by the tail" when a Caitlin-like tiger emerges, you have to recognize that you are not the tiger, and this is where WNBA leadership has failed in the moment of their greatest opportunity, and while I still think it most likely that this all gets figured out in the long term and the WNBA continues to be the most powerful women's pro league on the planet, now even in the best case scenario we're going to see some heads roll.

As I say all of this, there is one other thing that the W should have recognized:

The popularity of pro basketball in the US, must like pro football, came on the back of college ball. American college sports fans tend to be early adopters in part because they're used to cheering for their college in any sport they happen to be watching, and so that team brand exists in college in a way it doesn't in the pros until much later.

This to say then that the WNBA should have been expecting that college would produce the crossover superstars rather than themselves, and that when the college crossover star came of age, they would need to do some wooing of that star and all their other players. Instead they seem to have taken the popularity of a college star as a product of their pro product, which just isn't something I think they'd have done if they weren't talking delusionally behind the scenes. I don't know if Cathy is the person most to blame for this to be honest, I just know she's part of the cabal that is the problem.

[hermes]

the wnba probably thinks that all the people watching golf in the 2000s wasn't due to tiger woods

[Doctor MJ]

the wnba probably thinks that all the people watching golf in the 2000s wasn't due to tiger woods

Exactly!

Now, the good news for women's basketball is that I don't think Clark's appeal is anywhere near so singular as Tiger was - I think Clark's superstardom absolutely had a lot to do with women's basketball being in a place where they were ready to launch into the mainstream, and there's no reason to think that there will be a bubble that begins and ends with Clark - but that doesn't mean it makes any kind of sense to treat a crossover star like they are disposable.

[Green Chile]

Someone on First Take cited $40 million in loses. They didn't say for which time period though.

Some teams have folded but now the league is expanding. It seems like the financial picture for the league is in flux.

ESPN is a mouthpiece for the NBA. I don't trust anything they say especially after Pablo Torre basically made them look like fools.

Publish the documentation if the losses are that substantial

I agree that WNBA, as all sports leagues, will never open their books.

But I don't think it was in dispute that not too long ago, there were empty arenas and NBA was subsidizing the WNBA to keep it going.

WNBA players played in foreign leagues in the offseason or just stayed in those leagues rather than come back for the WNBA season.

We will see if the increase in popularity is sustainable.

As far as the commissioner, they can get rid of her but ultimately the owners and the NBA will have a much bigger say in the new CBA.

They played 44 games so they seem to be slowly increasing the length of the season. If they want to increase revenues, they're probably going to have to get to 60 games or more. Then you might start to get the same complaints which some people make of the NBA about the regular season being too long, too many injuries, fans becoming bored, etc.

That $40-50 million loss figure was almost surely leaked by somebody in the NBA (the only other option is that it was made up).

Even if we assume that number is true, businesses take losses all the time, but that doesn't mean employees take less to work there because of it.
It's the business' job to either make it profitable, or get out (oh I wish the NBA would ).

More importantly, businesses love to SHOW a loss. Particularly to the tax man and to labor during a labor dispute.
The loss may have a lot to do with their accounting, but the behavior of the NBA does not show they are trying to maximize profits with the WNBA (otherwise they'd go to smaller venues to cut costs, or not sell franchises 4 years out when they could garner possibly hundreds of millions more)

Most importantly, we know that number is meaningless because the only people that really know the financial health of the W (NBA owners) are trying to spend a $250-300 million to buy a team.
That's pretty much the end of the conversation.

But let's say we believe all this garbage the NBA is pushing through the media. That the W is just a dog and a money loser. Not worth the hassle.

That's them saying that they can't make money off of professional women's basketball in the US.
We know money can be made abroad. For decades, much less affluent countries have found a way to pay these women.
Now, Unrivaled can pay these women.
Heck, most people have never heard of Athletes Unlimited, but they even pay $30-40K for barely a month of work.

If the NBA cannot figure out a way to pay these women and be profitable, that means the NBA sucks at this.
It's my dream to see women's professional basketball in the US not controlled by the NBA. Because they do suck at this. I wish they'd admit that and move on.

Of course, we know they won't move on from this "money loser". They'll try to crush any other league that tries to get in the US women's professional basketball space, just like they did the ABL.

[Green Chile]

CC just publicly backed Phee. Cathy is DONE and I expect a strike or lock out to be imminent

I know the players are prepared for a lock out (seriously, they have so little to lose).

But I don't think the owners are.

They just sold 6 new teams to NBA owners, and of course, there are already a number of other NBA owners with WNBA teams (and more trying to get one).

The NBA ownership group will be split.
About half of the NBA owners really don't want a lock out, especially the 6 that just ponied up some cash. The other half don't give a **** about the W.

They are split, so they are more likely to crack, IMO.

Players aren't cracking.
They have nothing to lose.

Often, it's hard to get the highest paid athletes to agree with the rest, but the W ladies don't have that problem.

For players 57-156 that aren't in Unrivaled, they have Athletes Unlimited that pays pretty well.

Heck, they were all a big deal in college. They could pick up assistant coaching jobs, or just hang out for NIL money with their college programs.
NIL money dwarfs WNBA players salaries.

I don't discount the NBA trying to do something stupid. But they can't win this fight.

I might be reaching, but I think they are smart enough to figure that out.

[Mephariel]

With her advertising clout and immense popularity/fandom, Clark could step away from the WNBA to start up her own competing league and put them out of business virtually overnight.

The media dollars and ticket sales will always follow the talent.



Sent from my N152DL using RealGM mobile app

I think you vastly underestimate how much money it takes to build something like the WNBA. If she starts her own league, she won't have the backing of the NBA, and billionaire owners.

So to me the thing to look at when considering what a rival league would look like is something like Unrivaled.

The WNBA bakes in all the stuff that the NBA has which involves tons of cost that literally is unnecessary in the television era. You literally just need a court somewhere and TV cameras, and then the players to fly in once to start the season and once to fly out.

Are you going to earn WNBA level revenue doing this? No.

But you don't need WNBA level revenue to be able to pay players more than the W currently pays them, and that's the achilles heel that people don't tend to think about - and I don't think the WNBA itself has really thought about.

The reason why each team plays 82 games per year in the NBA while criss-crossing the country isn't because it's necessary for television, but because at one time attendance-related revenues were the most important thing. Because the NBA has let these pre-TV optimization continue on indefinitely, they're ripe to having their legs cut out from under them by rivals that chop out the unnecessary expenses.

Further, the NBA/WNBA earning more revenue than these rivals is cold comfort, because any kind of contraction to an established league will cause tons of chaos. If all of a sudden the NBA has to grapple with an X% drop in revenue each year, they're going to have eventually respond by killing jobs and cutting salaries, and when that happens there will be all sorts of labor conflict.

I worry that the W doesn't recognize this and because of the stuff Unrivaled doesn't do, thinks Unrivaled is not an viable long-term threat, but if Unrivaled pays more than what you pay, it's absolutely going to be a threat.

The thing is, Unrivaled is basically a start up company. It got tons of capital from investors. That is how it is able to create its salary pool. That is great, but you can't be start up company for 10 years. You can technically try to maintain that model (like ONE Championship in MMA), but it is not sustainable. Eventually, the business has to stand on its own two feet. The WNBA has the backing of the NBA, that is why they can weather the tough times. If the venture capitalists backed out, Unrivaled would be be in real trouble unless the business can really sustained itself. Also, I am not convinced Unrivaled can continue to pay more with less revenue. The average salary is around $200,000? The rumor is that max salaries in the WNBA could be be at least $1 million dollars after the next CBA negotiations. And if the league continues to grow, it will get even higher.

Do I think Clark starting a league could be a hot thing? Sure. But starting a business is one one thing, growing and maintaining a business is another. What exactly would be her growth plan if she wants to do something like unrivaled?

I think the WNBA has far more structure and actual money in place for it to exponentially grow. I think the commissioner just needs to get her act together.

[Green Chile]

Unrivaled just announced the 1st "tour stop" in Philly Jan. 30.

Right on cue.

[OriAr]

Cathy's position is obviously untenable, only question is whether she's out before or after new CBA gets agreed (And I expect them to eventually agree on something). She might get sacrificed as a convenient scapegoat to appease the players.
Regarding a lockout, we'll see where we are in March 2026 before we doom because until the threat of losing games gets real lockouts tend to be both sides blowing hot air and refusing to compromise.
I do think that the closer we get to losing games the less players and owners will be unified between themselves which should make agreeing a deal easier.

[Doctor MJ]

I think you vastly underestimate how much money it takes to build something like the WNBA. If she starts her own league, she won't have the backing of the NBA, and billionaire owners.

So to me the thing to look at when considering what a rival league would look like is something like Unrivaled.

The WNBA bakes in all the stuff that the NBA has which involves tons of cost that literally is unnecessary in the television era. You literally just need a court somewhere and TV cameras, and then the players to fly in once to start the season and once to fly out.

Are you going to earn WNBA level revenue doing this? No.

But you don't need WNBA level revenue to be able to pay players more than the W currently pays them, and that's the achilles heel that people don't tend to think about - and I don't think the WNBA itself has really thought about.

The reason why each team plays 82 games per year in the NBA while criss-crossing the country isn't because it's necessary for television, but because at one time attendance-related revenues were the most important thing. Because the NBA has let these pre-TV optimization continue on indefinitely, they're ripe to having their legs cut out from under them by rivals that chop out the unnecessary expenses.

Further, the NBA/WNBA earning more revenue than these rivals is cold comfort, because any kind of contraction to an established league will cause tons of chaos. If all of a sudden the NBA has to grapple with an X% drop in revenue each year, they're going to have eventually respond by killing jobs and cutting salaries, and when that happens there will be all sorts of labor conflict.

I worry that the W doesn't recognize this and because of the stuff Unrivaled doesn't do, thinks Unrivaled is not an viable long-term threat, but if Unrivaled pays more than what you pay, it's absolutely going to be a threat.

The thing is, Unrivaled is basically a start up company. It got tons of capital from investors. That is how it is able to create its salary pool. That is great, but you can't be start up company for 10 years. You can technically try to maintain that model (like ONE Championship in MMA), but it is not sustainable. Eventually, the business has to stand on its own two feet. The WNBA has the backing of the NBA, that is why they can weather the tough times. If the venture capitalists backed out, Unrivaled would be be in real trouble unless the business can really sustained itself. Also, I am not convinced Unrivaled can continue to pay more with less revenue. The average salary is around $200,000? The rumor is that max salaries in the WNBA could be be at least $1 million dollars after the next CBA negotiations. And if the league continues to grow, it will get even higher.

Do I think Clark starting a league could be a hot thing? Sure. But starting a business is one one thing, growing and maintaining a business is another. What exactly would be her growth plan if she wants to do something like unrivaled?

I think the WNBA has far more structure and actual money in place for it to exponentially grow. I think the commissioner just needs to get her act together.

Some good points, but:

1. The possibility of Unrivaled crashing in 9 years isn't all that relevant, I think, to CBA negotiations happening right now.

2. Unrivaled got their 6 year TV deal before their first season from TNT. It's possible that TNT is losing money like crazy on this, and if they are, then WNBA players absolutely need to factor that in before they make demands of the WNBA... but it's not a question of whether Unrivaled was getting major revenue, which means they aren't a typical start-up operating in the red.

3. Unrivaled IS paying more on less revenue so it's not actually a question of whether they can. It's what's happening.

4. "1 million dollars after the next CBA negotiations". Well, the CBA negotiations are what we're talking about here - they are what's happening right now, and why Phee just said what she said.

So, does the W have a pretty simple way of making all of this work and not being bothered by Unrivaled going forward? Absolutely.

Is the W embracing actually doing this? Apparently not.

[OriAr]

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Sounds like Cathy isn't willing to go down without a fight, also pretty much calling Phee a liar. This is about to get ultra messy.