Players, fans put CBA center stage during WNBA All-Star Weekend

INDIANAPOLIS — “Pay Us What You Owe Us.”

It was a simple message emblazoned across the shirts of players during warm-ups before Saturday’s WNBA All-Star game, but also an encapsulation of the weekend.

For as successful and big as everything was about All-Star weekend in Indianapolis, there was one prevailing topic that dominated the conversation even before the players took the floor on Saturday: The looming CBA expiration.

The WNBA’s growth has been rapid and seismic. Unsurprisingly, the city of the league’s most popular team turned out in a big way.

Fans came out in droves, whether it was for All-Stars, WNBA players or college athletes not even yet in the league. And yet, no matter if it was a pop-up shop, sponsored event or a simple meet-and-greet, the conversation almost always came back to the same topic.

And it was the fans who got the final word on the matter.

Following Team Collier’s 151-131 win — and during the MVP ceremony for captain Napheesa Collier — the fans drowned out WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert with “Pay them” chants.

The current collective bargaining agreement is set to expire on Oct. 31. The aforementioned growth of the league means that it has completely outgrown its current CBA in many ways, and drastic changes are needed.

A fitting tone-setter for the weekend saw nearly 40 players meet with the owners and Engelbert for negotiations on Thursday. The feeling that emerged from that meeting, however, was frustration more than anything else.

Breanna Stewart said there was “a lot of fluff” at the first in-person CBA meeting Thursday.

“I think yesterday’s meeting was good for the fact that we could be in the same room as the league and the board of governors. But, I think, to be frank, it was a wasted opportunity.” https://t.co/WP9CcEKx0Z pic.twitter.com/ryp36YVM0A

— Colin Salao (@colincsalao) July 18, 2025

“We’re not just basketball players. We understand basic economics. We understand business models.”

Liberty guard Natasha Cloud said there was no progress made in yesterday’s WNBA CBA negotiations ⬇️ pic.twitter.com/eOg0Z5IeoM

— Amber Harding Snyder (@TheAmberHarding) July 18, 2025

The league’s growth, specifically in recent seasons, has started to shed light on the need for significant improvement in the new CBA, creating an unavoidable dichotomy apparent throughout the weekend.

Prior to the game, Engelbert spoke to the media and raved about how the league’s record-breaking viewership (up 22%), attendance (up 26%) and merch sales (up 40%) have risen across the board. In that same spot 24 hours earlier, Liberty guard Natasha Cloud told reporters she’d use her winnings from taking home the trophy in the skills challenge as a down payment on a house.

To further illustrate how outdated the CBA is, the league currently pays out only $2,575 to the winners of Friday’s events. A partnership between the WNBPA and Aflac led to Cloud earning $55,000 for winning the skills challenge and Sabrina Ionescu earning $60,000 after being crowned a winner again in the 3-point shootout.

Ionescu revealed postgame that she had promised half of her winnings to rookie Sonia Citron, who also took part in the 3-point contest. That figure represents nearly half of Citron’s salary of $78,831 this season.

“I think that’s one of the things that we’re in the room fighting for,” Caitlin Clark said of higher salaries before Saturday’s game. “We should be paid more and, hopefully, that’s the case moving forward as the league continues to grow. I think that’s probably the most important thing that we’re in the room advocating about.”

The players made their loudest statement with their shirts before the game, a clear indication of where they felt things stood in negotiations with owners. That came moments after Engelbert had expressed a much more optimistic outlook on CBA negotiations, further highlighting the significant distance between the two sides.

“I want to call it constructive,” Engelbert said of the talks this weekend. “We had candid dialogue. This is part of the process…I want a lot of the same things the players want. I said that last time, too. It’s not changed.

“But we also have to have a process where we go back and forth. We’re in the process. Again, I’m still really optimistic that we’ll get something done that will be transformational and next year at All-Star we’ll be talking about how great everything is. Obviously, there’s a lot of hard work to be done on both sides to get there.”

To call this upcoming CBA important would be quite the understatement. The league’s increase in popularity has been akin to a rocket ship taking off. The question now is what type of rocket will the league mimic: a miniature model that quickly comes back down to Earth when tossed into the air, or a NASA spaceship that heads into the great unknown and keeps rising?

This next CBA will go a very long way in determining what that future looks like.

“A CBA [deal] is seven years,” Collier said. “You never know how much longer you have to play and so obviously I’m taking this really seriously for myself, but also for the future generations we are setting up the next CBA. You always have to think about that as well and so the decisions that are made here affect a lot of people and so of course we’re taking it really seriously.”

As much as the players may have a unified message, getting the backing of the fans felt like a substantial development, too. Delivering the message was important, but gaining a foothold in the court of public opinion was even more significant.

“It was a very powerful moment,” said Kelsey Plum, the current First Vice President of the WNBPA. “It’s extremely important.. because it applies pressure and even those chants tonight, the signs, I think it just shows that, obviously, as players we’re united, but the fans are united in what they believe that we’re we’re seeking and that’s extremely important because that pressure could put a lot of good things on the table for us.”

Plum called it a successful weekend because of their ability to bring awareness to the matter, but ultimately, the weekend represented many things.

There was a big missed opportunity at the same time as the league was reaping the rewards of its growth. There was frustration with how things started and optimism with how they finished.

In the end, the players made their message loud and clear with the six words spread across their shirts.

“The players are what is building this brand and this league,” Collier said. “There is no league without the players and past, present, the ones coming up. They’re the ones that have put in the blood, sweat and tears for the new money that’s coming in. We feel like we are owed a piece of that pie that we helped to create.”