Phee: "We have worst leadership"

[cupcakesnake]

I believe ESPN has actively been doing net damage to the NBA community since they shuttered Grantland in 2015.

This deserves an entire topic.

[MrDollarBills]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/10/03/opinion/wnba-pay.html?unlocked_article_code=1.q08.8uzg.m_gJ4EgpNHxh&smid=url-share

An economics professor went into a (sourced) deep dive on the subject of what the players should be earning at this point in the league's history. Free article link above. Obviously I can't post the entire article but this raised my eyebrow:

The gender wage gap is hardly unique to basketball. In the early 1970s, when women’s tennis was taking off, stars like Billie Jean King were not paid comparably to their male counterparts at Grand Slam events like the U.S. Open. More recently, the women of U.S. Soccer found that winning World Cups wasn’t enough to be paid like men who had accomplished far less. In both of these sports — after extensive protests and strikes or legal action – the gender wage gap was substantially closed.

Perhaps the same will happen with the next W.N.B.A. collective bargaining agreement. If that is the case, what will the W.N.B.A.’s top talent be paid if its players finally get a deal similar to that given the N.B.A.’s players? Assuming that the players as a whole are splitting 50 percent of the league’s revenue, we can estimate how much individual players would be worth based on how many wins they produced. By my calculations, stars like Napheesa Collier, A’ja Wilson and Alyssa Thomas should each be earning more than $3 million per year.

[ImmortalD24]

That play was definitely a foul. For whatever reason she’s getting Kobe Bryant 06 treatment vs Raja Bell. The league is definitely trying to send a message to her. 5 fouls on her and the defender is allowed to do whatever they want.. nah league is a joke.

[TinmanZBoy]

Cathy is done… they need a “David Stern”..

[Green Chile]

Cathy is done… they need a “David Stern”..

In the current situation, there's not going to be a David Stern type commissioner of the W.

The W being owned and controlled by the NBA makes the WNBA Commissioner/President job the strangest in sports.

It's hard to be a great commish when you really aren't making any important decisions.

I'd even say Cathy has done a great job. She's done exactly what her bosses want to. Her job is to make sure Silver doesn't have to deal with this. To be the one to tell the ladies they should be thankful for a job, and not get uppity.

It's poor form for Silver to say it. He has Cathy and ESPN do it.

And the most important part of the job.....when things get ugly, she gets to be the bad guy. Fire her. Rinse. Repeat.

[hermes]

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/10/03/opinion/wnba-pay.html?unlocked_article_code=1.q08.8uzg.m_gJ4EgpNHxh&smid=url-share

An economics professor went into a (sourced) deep dive on the subject of what the players should be earning at this point in the league's history. Free article link above. Obviously I can't post the entire article but this raised my eyebrow:

The gender wage gap is hardly unique to basketball. In the early 1970s, when women’s tennis was taking off, stars like Billie Jean King were not paid comparably to their male counterparts at Grand Slam events like the U.S. Open. More recently, the women of U.S. Soccer found that winning World Cups wasn’t enough to be paid like men who had accomplished far less. In both of these sports — after extensive protests and strikes or legal action – the gender wage gap was substantially closed.

Perhaps the same will happen with the next W.N.B.A. collective bargaining agreement. If that is the case, what will the W.N.B.A.’s top talent be paid if its players finally get a deal similar to that given the N.B.A.’s players? Assuming that the players as a whole are splitting 50 percent of the league’s revenue, we can estimate how much individual players would be worth based on how many wins they produced. By my calculations, stars like Napheesa Collier, A’ja Wilson and Alyssa Thomas should each be earning more than $3 million per year.

this was a very good article, thanks

absolutely wild that nba players in the 70s were making more money than wnba players now - 50 years later!

and veronic burton had one heck of a year, she's up with there with the leagues best on that projected pay chart based on this year's stats

[hermes]

phee was going to meet with cathy to talk about it all but is cancelling after cathy called her a liar

[ellobo]

phee was going to meet with cathy to talk about it all but is cancelling after cathy called her a liar

In Phee's exit interview statement, she specified that she met with Cathy in February and that's when Cathy made the statements that Phee described. In an article today on espn.com, "Multiple sources contacted by ESPN said Collier had relayed Engelbert's comments to them within several days of the February meeting."

https://www.espn.com/wnba/story/_/id/46501777/beyond-repair-napheesa-collier-cathy-engelbert-wnba-teetering-brink

[sikma42]

Phee also made that statement without any communication or coordination with the players association.

Read on Twitter

?s=46

Interesting.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

[Doctor MJ]

Phee also made that statement without any communication or coordination with the players association.

Read on Twitter

?s=46

Interesting.


Sent from my iPhone using RealGM Forums

Yeah, would not be at all surprised if there are some in the WNBPA leadership - to say nothing of the rank & file - who feel that Phee has sidestepped the normal process for deciding how they should approach CBA negotiation, and her explicit connection to Unrivaled does make for allegations of bias.

I'm not sure what I hope for on that front, but I'm definitely hoping that the WNBA execs recognize that this is a time for being very careful about picking battles worth a work stoppage at the very least.

[wco81]

Podcast has a discussion of this situation with Collier and Englebert, about the last 10-20 minutes.

https://slate.com/podcasts/hang-up-and-listen/2025/10/how-prediction-markets-like-kalshi-are-reinventing-sports-betting

Lindsay Gibbs says that Englebert is just a mouthpiece for the NBA and if replaced, would likely be another person saying whatever the NBA wants them to say.

She says for years many NBA owners resented carrying the WNBA financially. Some didn't even want there to be a women's league.

That seems to imply that at least some parts of the NBA will set a hard line, unless the economics of the WNBA, with new TV deals and revenues from game day tickets and merchandise sales have really increased.

[Ice Man]

[quote="wco81"She says for years many NBA owners resented carrying the WNBA financially. Some didn't even want there to be a women's league.

That seems to imply that at least some parts of the NBA will set a hard line, unless the economics of the WNBA, with new TV deals and revenues from game day tickets and merchandise sales have really increased.[/quote]

Sounds right. Last year, I ran into a NBA executive whose NBA team is associated with a WNBA playoff team. I said congratulations. His immediate answer - "We're still losing money with that team."

[Doctor MJ]

Podcast has a discussion of this situation with Collier and Englebert, about the last 10-20 minutes.

https://slate.com/podcasts/hang-up-and-listen/2025/10/how-prediction-markets-like-kalshi-are-reinventing-sports-betting

Lindsay Gibbs says that Englebert is just a mouthpiece for the NBA and if replaced, would likely be another person saying whatever the NBA wants them to say.

She says for years many NBA owners resented carrying the WNBA financially. Some didn't even want there to be a women's league.

That seems to imply that at least some parts of the NBA will set a hard line, unless the economics of the WNBA, with new TV deals and revenues from game day tickets and merchandise sales have really increased.

Seems pretty plausible.

It makes sense that while the NBA itself sees the WNBA as their way to control women's basketball, the owners see it essentially as a start-up they've been bleeding money on. When a start-up goes from losing money to making profit, you expect that the original investors will get a handsome payout before basically anyone else gets to dine on the new revenue coming in.

The problem with the thinking is that this isn't a situation where where the WNBA was systematically building to this point over 30 years, but rather them makin a bet way back then that proved to be premature, and rather than exiting with an eye to re-enter when the time was ripe, the ones that stayed stayed losing money all those years and now rather than owning that decision, they are essentially taking it own on the generation of WNBA players that are allowing the sport to go mainstream.

Not smart.

[Doctor MJ]

[quote="wco81"She says for years many NBA owners resented carrying the WNBA financially. Some didn't even want there to be a women's league.

That seems to imply that at least some parts of the NBA will set a hard line, unless the economics of the WNBA, with new TV deals and revenues from game day tickets and merchandise sales have really increased.

Sounds right. Last year, I ran into a NBA executive whose NBA team is associated with a WNBA playoff team. I said congratulations. His immediate answer - "We're still losing money with that team."[/quote]

And let's note that the new TV deal - which should make everything profitable - won't come into play until 2026.

The fact that the players are negotiating literally for the 2026 season onward makes it entirely rational that negotiations should start fresh from that point on without any thought to the fact that the W previously lost money.

But, other issues aside, the fact that the owners won't actually get any of that big revenue money until after a CBA, means that they're coming at this as still losing money, and it makes sense they'd not be feeling generous.