The WNBA Contract Negotiations Are as Intense as the Finals

But Minnesota Lynx forward Napheesa Collier is proving herself a labor rights legend.

By Alyssa Mercante  |  October 7, 2025 | 5:05pm
Photo: Getty Images Sports
The WNBA Contract Negotiations Are as Intense as the Finals

Game three of the WNBA Finals between the Las Vegas Aces and the Phoenix Mercury is on Wednesday, October 8, but the battle between the league’s players and its leadership looms. On October 31, the collective bargaining agreement between WNBA players and the league expires, and the best female basketball players in the world are seeking major changes to their contracts after the league’s massive growth and persistent refereeing issues. 

Napheesa Collier, a forward for the Minnesota Lynx (the top-ranked team going into the playoffs, though they were eliminated last week) and vice president of the union’s executive board, had some choice words at her season-ending press conference on September 30.

“I’d like to congratulate the Mercury for advancing to the finals. I want to be clear that this conversation is not about winning or losing. It’s about something much bigger,” she read from a prepared statement, “The real threat to our league isn’t money. It isn’t ratings or even missed calls or even physical play. It’s the lack of accountability from the league office.”

Collier said the WNBA has a buzzword that it keeps using during the CBA (collective bargaining agreement) talks: “sustainability.” She said it’s been wielded to justify why players won’t get more money, or why refereeing won’t get better.

Poor officiating has become the norm, not the exception, in the WNBA. So for Collier and her peers, “what’s truly unsustainable is keeping a good product on the floor while allowing officials to lose control of the games.” In June, Jezebel reported on a particularly rough, poorly officiated game between the Indiana Fever and Connecticut Sun, which saw star Caitlin Clark get bullied on the court.

Collier then alleged that, in February, league president Cathy Engelbert said “only losers complain about the refs.” She also claimed that league leadership suggested Clark and other top players should be “grateful” for the platform they’ve been given, because “without it she wouldn’t make anything.”

Collier’s statement was widely supported by her fellow WNBA players on social media and in press conferences, including Clark, who said, “she made a lot of very valid points,” and Chicago Sky forward Angel Reese, who tweeted, “10/10. No Notes!”

Following the press conference, Engelbert and Collier were meant to meet to discuss the impending CBA expiration on October 31, but according to ESPN, Collier canceled the meeting on Saturday after Engelbert denied making those comments. The lengthy ESPN report also alleges that a source “close to Collier” said “the end of [the] press conference…pushed the relationship beyond repair.”

Some suggested to ESPN that Collier’s statement was meant to help promote Unrivaled, a 3-on-3 league she co-founded with her husband, Alex Bazze, and New York Liberty forward Breanna Stewart—which she mentioned by name on September 30.

Regardless of the Unrivaled promo, it’s clear to anyone with eyes and ears that the WNBA players have been demanding (and are deserving of) better pay and better officiating. With stars like Clark and Reese drawing in massive revenue, a “monumental” 11-year, $2.2 billion media deal with Disney, Amazon, and NBC Universal, which takes effect in 2026, and a planned expansion into three new cities by 2030, the WNBA is clearly making money. And its players are the only reason it does.

NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement on October 6 that the WNBA was experiencing “growing pains” and that there are “relationship issues” between players and league executives.

“We will get a deal done with the players,” he said. “Lots of work left to be done, but we’ll, of course, get a new collective bargaining deal done.”

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