A Flagrant guide to the WNBA's CBA negotiations (and impending lockout)

"The league without the players simply… what is it?"

Flagrant Mag is a print magazine focused on providing equal coverage to all genders and levels of basketball. Short of getting Nneka Ogwumike (one day), there was no one better I could think of to offer a rundown of the ongoing WNBA CBA negotiations, and a candid snapshot of where things stand with a lockout looming.

In addition to being 3/5ths of the magazine’s founders, Ciara, Ashtyn, and Alex host Flagrant Mag’s weekly podcast (they also provided the BASKETBALL FEELINGS recommendation above, which is like a mini Flagrant pod dedicated to this publication).

And while I’m at it, new paid subscribers (and anyone who’s an existing paid subscriber) will be entered into a draw for an annual Flagrant Mag subscription c/o BASKETBALL FEELINGS. That’s right, a beautiful, glossy piece of print basketball media chock-full of stories (occasionally by me) and art delivered to your home, every quarter, for a year.

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On revenue sharing and other incentives for players

Alex: So my question is — in lieu of the revenue share that W players are asking for, what could the WNBA offer the players that would maybe placate them or be even more exciting than rev?

Ashtyn: Mmm. Yeah, what’s better than rev… good question.

Ciara: Yeah. When they say revenue share, is that including all revenue, including merch sales, yada, yada, yada?

Alex: I think so.

Ciara: Because I was going to say something that could help is just having more merch. Maybe you would have a little bit more revenue to share if, I don’t know, you didn’t rely on Playa Society to make all the good merch.

Alex: Mmm. I couldn’t buy a Courtney Vandersloot Sky jersey all season.

Ashtyn: Yeah, it’s crazy. I actually, I kept telling myself I couldn’t buy a Marine Johannes jersey, but then my friend showed up to a game in one and I was like, wait, I thought we couldn’t buy those… I’m still not totally clear on it. So does that help?

Ciara: Give me a break.

Ashtyn: I did not buy one, which means Marine did not get however many of my dollars. Actually, she wouldn’t have gotten it anyways. I should DM her and say, “Can I buy one from you directly? Can you buy it? And then I’ll buy it from you at a premium.”

Ciara: Yeah, at a markup.

Alex: That’s pretty thirsty, Ashtyn, if I’m being honest.

Ashtyn: Well, yeah, no, yeah, it is…

Ciara: They should resell all of their stuff to normal hardworking folks such as ourselves who have normal interests and want their stuff for normal reasons.

Ashtyn: In the NBA, and I think NFL, and all the other men’s sports it’s a 50 percent rev share and the W gets nine percent. Which is [Irish accent] sart of a low number if you ask us.

Alex: Nine [beep] percent.

Ciara: Give me a break. Couldn’t even hit double digis.

Ashtyn: I know. And you know what really grinds my gears is a lot of these stupid guys on Reddit and stuff want to be like, “Well, the league doesn’t make that much money. If they don’t have the money, then how are they supposed to pay them?”

But with every other business, you still have to pay employees a fair rate. And if you can’t, then you can’t have that many employees. So at this point, technically, you shouldn’t be able to have a WNBA team if you can’t pay them.

Alex: Like, pay your employees first is kind of a rule in business. And if you’re not doing that, you’re the problem.

Ashtyn: So figure it out. But to answer your question Alex, what else could Cathy give to the players besides rev share to placate them… Trips? Timepieces? Luxury timepieces?

Alex: Dime pieces?

Ashtyn: Courtside baddies?

Ciara: Time shares?

Alex: You can bring your dime piece to a timeshare. Like, man, share a little bit of time. No, but really, you should be able to bring, three people to travel with, or they’ll pay for three people to stay in the city during the game.

Ciara: And share a little time with them, if you know what I’m saying.

Ashtyn: Mm-hmm. I would say, I don’t know how many of them have this… Wait, disclaimer: this is an earnest answer. The Liberty do get housing, I believe. And I would say if some teams don’t have housing, they definitely need to get housing.

Ciara: Yeah. I think most of the Sky players live out in the suburbs.

Alex: Well, that’s one of the reasons they’re the worst team to play for. So yeah, I’m with you. Let’s look at everyone’s basic needs. Food, shelter, water, housing is part of shelter. So housing. And I think they should get stipends on food.

Ashtyn: And then water as you mentioned, they should get access to any Nestlé waterfall that they want in the entire world. Go drink from it and contaminate that as much as they want.

Alex: Yes, they should be able to basically mine any freshwater area.

Ashtyn: What are some things they could do as side jobs or just to kill the time during the looming lockout?

Ciara: That’s a good question. I think a lot of them should hang out in Washington Square Park, where the people are always doing the man-on-the-street TikTok videos. I’d like to see more WNBA players. What are you listening to right now? For $100, can you name three songs by those artists? I mean, they might need the $100 if there’s gonna be a lockout.

Ashtyn: I don’t even know what the TikTok was, but Kahleah Copper was in one of those. And no one said anything. It was just a round table of answers, and it was just Kah in there. And I was like, okay, sure girl.

Ciara: She’s so funny. So, yeah, mill about in Washington Square Park.

Alex: I think they should all be on Cameo, because I would certainly pay whatever amount of money, even if it was cheap. If it was $100 to $200 on Cameo, I think they could get some cash in this off season.

Ciara: I mean, we have some great experience buying a Cameo from a WNBA player in our Flagrant Mag Discord. Our Patron Marie got one from Maddy Siegrist for you, Ashtyn.

Ashtyn: And she called me Ashlyn immediately. “Hey, Ashlyn.” Thanks, Maddy.

Alex: My god, that was really funny.

Ashtyn: Love you girl. Also, Jewell Loyd. Someone bought it for our other Patron, Joey, and she said, “Keep chugging.”

Ciara: Yeah, that was iconic.

Alex: Oh my god, during the Chug challenge. These are things you would know about if you’re a Substack or Patreon subscriber.

Ashtyn: Yeah, these are really good ideas. When I asked this question, I didn’t think of anything myself. So I’m glad you guys carried the weight of that.

On a potential lockout (and more incentives for players)

Ciara: Yeah. I have a question. What the [beep] does the WNBA think they’re gonna do if there’s a lockout?

Ashtyn: I know, dude.

Alex: That’s exactly what the [beep] I’m saying. And this is what I said recently, which is there is only one end to this and that’s you pay the players. Do you want to do it now or do you want to [beep] around, lose a bunch of money from a lockout and then do it later? Stop doing this performative negotiation. Everyone knows, including you, that you should be paying these people more.

Ciara: Yeah

Alex: Stop yanking my chain.

Ciara: Yeah, they’ve got Unrivaled already stepping on their necks. AU Basketball just signed a broadcast deal with ESPN. So we’re gonna be able to watch more AU games, unless you have YouTube TV and then sucks for you…

Alex: Yes!

Ashtyn: It’s a player’s market, shall we say?

Ciara: It’s not a great time to be a league locking out your players.

Ashtyn: Another idea for the players: Have a pickup game and charge people $20. I’m coming to that. Charge $200. I’m coming to that.

Ciara: Yeah.

Alex: They should put on their own exhibition games. If they’re not in contract, they can do whatever they want without having to consult anybody.

Ashtyn: Absolutely.

Alex: And for any WNBA players reading this, you should strike. We support you. If me, as a new season ticket holder, doesn’t get to watch the team play, so be it. I would rather you all get paid.

Ciara: We love you.

Ashtyn: We’ll march with you, girl. To me, the players have so much more leverage. The players can go get their brand deals. They can do their content thing. They can do whatever because many of them already have those platforms. The league without the players simply… what is it?

Alex: The players are the thing keeping you guys afloat and keeping you relevant. So pay them and they’ll make it better. Happy employees—

Ashtyn: Happy lives.

Ciara: Yeah. Happy wives, happy lives.

On where leagues like Unrivaled and the NBA fit in

Ashtyn: Do we think Stewie [Breanna Stewart] and Phee [Napheesa Collier] doing Unrivaled and being in the negotiations is a conflict of interest?

Alex: I don’t think it’s illegal or walking that line at all. What Phee said about like, “Now that I’ve been on the other side and I know what it takes to run a league, it’s even more humiliating that the W is run as poorly as it’s run.”

Having that perspective gives someone power. A lot of times, the people who aren’t in power are also at a disadvantage just simply from not being part of leadership and not having that context, but she has the context, and that’s why she’s speaking out and speaking for everybody else and saying, guess what? It’s not that [beep] hard.

Ciara: Mm-hmm.

Ashtyn: And even putting aside Unrivaled, the other way to break this all down is this. There should be no world where the counterparts of the W, the male counterparts, make a hundred million dollars more than them. One hundred million dollars. Everyone talks about whether or not the 50 percent is a sustainable number, whatever. Some of these men’s contracts are $200 million for five years. And there are something like three players in the W that make the supermax of, like, $250,000.

Alex: And the NBA has been in business for so many more years than the WNBA, and they’ve had the chance to build interest, growth, revenue, et cetera, over several decades. And the W has only had a little less than 30 years to do that. So.

Ashtyn: Yeah. I’m sorry, I don’t care about the rev breakdown. At face value the male counterparts — when these leagues are owned by the same people — should not be legally allowed to make that much more money than the women. I don’t even care if this is an arbitrary rule. That’s not allowed. We can’t do that.

Alex: Socialism in sports is what Ashtyn’s pitching, and I’m supportive of it.

Ashtyn: Zohran [Mamdani] save the WNBA.

Ciara: Please, God.

Alex: It’s just crazy. You’re being gaslit by your own commissioner to be told that, no, we can’t afford it. Cathy should be getting paid [beep]. She should be standing up a league that empowers, pays, and supports all of the players that make it what it is. And then guess what? Once they start really making money, then maybe Cathy makes more money. Great. Awesome. That’s how I see it.

Ashtyn: Even Adam Silver, too.

Alex: Everyone needs to give their money away.

Ciara: Yeah, to us or the WNBA players, whatever works.

Alex: Everyone below you needs money. And I’m talking to everyone ever, everywhere. Everyone below you needs some [beep] money.

Ciara: We’re bringing back trickle-down economics.

Ashtyn: Which, this time, just kind of looks like…

Ciara: Giving us money.

Ashtyn: We should fill fridges, but for WNBA money.

Ciara: Just refrigerators full of money. It’s just full of cash.

Alex: WNBA fridges, the community fridge for WNBA players, and it’s full of cash.

Ashtyn: Similar to how the government shut down. We’re filling fridges because the W shut down.

Alex: Okay, well, don’t put that in BASKETBALL FEELINGS because we got to do that for content when the lockout inevitably happens because capitalism and CEOs are evil. We’re going viral.

Ciara: Yeah, cut this.

[Editor’s note: 🤑]

Ashtyn: Make a fridge, put some money in it. And we’ll just give the code out to players only.

Alex: There’s no code. We’re just gonna take pictures of it… as a joke. It’s only gonna exist online. No one can say where it is or where it isn’t.

Ashtyn: Okay. So it will be AI, got it.

Ciara: No, we’re gonna do the worst Photoshop job you’ve ever seen, okay?

Alex: Well, we could actually put some fridges out there. That would actually be pretty funny. Let me tell you what it should be. Every city with a WNBA team should have a fridge that’s promoted, and it is funded by the WNBA. The fans of that community can also stock it, but that would be a great PR move by the W to say, “This is the WNBA’s fridge and we stocked it for you.”

Ashtyn: Yeah, separate from… now you’re just giving him PR ideas. Yeah. Okay.

Ciara: Separate from deez nuts.

Ashtyn: Are you really eating nuts?

Alex: Ciara’s eating these nuts.

Ashtyn: I thought you were munching on M&Ms for some reason.

Alex: [laughs] Those aren’t vegan. You thought it was peanut M&Ms with that milk chocolate?

Ciara: [laughs] Yeah. Something I [Irish accent] sart of famously can’t eat. Anyway, I figure since we’re not using the audio for this, I can sort of just crunch.

Alex: God, that was my favorite. Peanut M&Ms are perfect. I miss them.

Ciara: They were like the last non-vegan thing I ate.

Ashtyn: Wow, I don’t even remember the last non-vegan thing I ate.

Alex: Mine was a pepperoni and pineapple Papa Murphy’s pizza.

Ashtyn: [laughs] Don’t even get me started on pineapple on pizza!!!

Alex: [laughs] Guys, I’m just wondering if it’s fine if I have pineapple on my pizza?

Ciara: [laughs] And, like, is it a sandwich or a pizza???

Ashtyn: No, you literally cannot put pineapple on pizza!!!!!

Ciara: No Alex, I think you should [beep] kill yourself for that.

Alex: God, sell that content idea to, I don’t know, Ticketmaster for $100 million. Sound good?

Ciara: We kind of just invented that.

Alex: Have you guys thought about asking them about some, just, pretty common food ingredients?

Ashtyn: The parable of pineapple on pizza. We should end it there.