Gabby Williams returned to the WNBA after carrying Team France to the gold medal match against Team USA at the Paris 2024 Olympics.
Shortly after her heroic Olympic run, Williams, who spent the first 28 games of the WNBA season playing overseas for financial reasons, re-signed with the Seattle Storm for the remainder of the 2024 season.
The 5-foot-11, 170-pound versatile wing averaged 10.3 points, four rebounds and 3.7 assists in her 12 games, helping the Storm finish with a top 5 seeding in the playoffs before losing to the two-time defending champion Vegas Aces in the first round.
Williams is one of several star players who in the past had to play overseas in the offseason or during what would be the WNBA season, because of the low wages the league offers star players.
Gabby Williams Returns To Turkey, Says WNBA Hasn’t Met Financial Promises To Players
Until last weekebd, Williams hadn’t revealed her intensions. She’s clearly a high-caliber player in the WNBA, but even with Caitlin Clark and the WNBA rookie explosion, there are currently just 21 of 144 WNBA players making at least $200,000 per season.
Now she’s headed to Turkey to get the bag, and she feels fans don’t understand the real numbers because all of the pomp and circumstance surrounding Clark’s arrival and impact.
Williams recently signed a contract with Fenerbahçe S.K. of the Turkish Super League. The back-to-back FIBA EuroLeague Women champions are based out of Istanbul and will hope to three-peat during the 2024-25 season, which continues through at least June 1, 2025, depending on playoffs.
In 2018, Williams signed a four-year, $232,178 contract with Chicago Sky. Then she signed a one-year, $100,000 contract with the Seattle Storm, before leaving to play in Turkey most of the 2024 season. She only made $23,490 in her 12-game regular season stint with the Storm.
“Clark makes $70,000 in the WNBA,” Williams said this week in a TikTok video. “So I know all these Caitlin Clark fans are like, ‘Caitlin Clark makes $700,000.’”
”That’s off of endorsements. … To everyone saying ‘leave the country, if you’re unhappy in America,’ I did.”
The versatile baller has been very critical of the WNBA’s pay structure in the past, and her decision to play overseas rather than return to the WNBA was purely financial. She’s a talent that definitely helps raise the league’s profile.
Gabby Williams Says WNBA Thinks They Don’t Have To Pay Players A Livable Wage
Last summer she told The Next Hoops, “Unfortunately, [the WNBA] doesn’t pay the most. So I am happy to have other options to provide for me and my family.”
Williams repeated her criticism of the WNBA’s pay structure during her exit presser with the Storm at the end of the regular season.
“The W[NBA] thinks that they don’t have to pay us more in order for us to be here. And I think I didn’t express that when I first talked about prioritization,” Williams said.
“Our commissioner talked about us being able to make $700,000. That’s actually not true at all. There’s not one player who makes that.”
WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert previously said that the league was valued at $60 million entering the season and that number had jumped significantly this season, past the $120 million they hoped to haul in off the backs of the new batch of captivating rookies.
Assuming that’s true, it’s odd that the WNBA didn’t at least make it a point to mention that significantly higher pay scales would probably be in place by the conclusion of the next collective bargaining agreement. A show of good faith.
With the booming ratings and and interest, particularly in Caitlin Clark, and the new $2 billion media rights check the NBA cut, chartered flights in position and several current players having shoe deals, players will expect the league to prioritize pay hikes commensurate with the increased revenue streams.
The WNBA’s current CBA started in 2020 and runs through 2027, but both the WNBA and the Players Association can opt out of the agreement by providing written notice by November 1, 2024.
Star players, such as Breanna Stewart of the NY Liberty have been saying they want to opt of the current CBA for years now. With the new revenue platform and increased brand valuation — one which some analysts such as Cheryl Miller insist is still being undervalued — it’s likely that both parties will opt out and player salaries will be a major point of negotiations.
How Much Do WNBA Players Make Overseas?
According to The Athletic, in 2015, The New York Times reported that Phoenix Mercury star Diana Taurasi, a holder of an Italian passport, was paid close to $1.5 million per year by the Russian powerhouse UMMC Ekaterinburg. New York Liberty star Jonquel Jones, who represents the Barbados but holds Bosnian citizenship, told ESPN last year that she made her annual WNBA salary in a month playing for Ekaterinburg.
Those salaries are reportedly outliers. The amount of Williams’ deal has not been disclosed, but you have to figure that it’s more than whatever Seattle was offering, along with living perks the WNBA doesn’t offer.
Overall, the players reportedly aren’t caking like that, although many of them, as of 2023, were still taking the check to go overseas and ball in the offseason and the overseas game is changing, with American leagues valuing foreign players at almost the same rate.
WNBA’s Highest-Paid Player Makes $252K
WNBA salaries are slowly rising. The average WNBA salary in 2024 is reportedly more than $130,069. This is considerably higher than the average salary in previous years.
The WNBA’s highest-paid player in 2024 is Las Vegas Aces guard Jackie Young, who earns an annual salary of $252,450, as a part of a two-year, $504,900 contract.
Jewell Loyd of the Seattle Storm and Kahleah Copper of the Phoenix Mercury are the second- and third-highest earners in 2024, respectively.
In comparison, Duke freshman Cooper Flagg has a current NIL Valuation of $1.4M, according to reports.
Despite what is being presented as this unprecedented moment in WNBA history and one of exponential financial growth in a short time, according to Williams, the league has yet to come through on promises to players concerning marketing and promotions and salaries.
WNBA CBA Expires In 2027, Can Pull Out By Nov. 1, 2024
To be fair, under the last CBA, finalized in 2021, players were reportedly going to have the potential to earn more than $500,000 annually in cash compensation. Maximum salaries did climb to $215,000—nearly doubling prior max of $117,500.
There are currently 21 players making at least $200,000 per season. The top four picks in the first round earn the same amount of money, regardless of order. Those deals are four-year, $338,056 contracts, according to Spotrac.
Players and the league also agreed to share revenue 50-50 based on the league’s ability to meet revenue targets from marketing, broadcast, and licensing deals.
Williams says the players haven’t really benefitted from any of it and the league hasn’t seized the moment.
Brittney Griner Horror Highlighted Need For Higher WNBA Salaries To Keep Players Home In Offseason
With those failures, players have been forced to seek work elsewhere. This issue concerning the dangers for WNBA players going overseas to get a bag really became part of the national conversation when Phoenix Suns star Brittney Griner was imprisoned for nine months in a Russian jail for having vape cartridges in her bag at the airport returning home to the states after representing a Russian team in competition.
“We were promised team marketing agreements and league marketing agreements, but they’ve fallen quite short,” Williams added. “So it’s still not enough for us international players to want to stay here. And that’s a choice of the players. If I make a choice to make more money, whatever, and then teams are mad that I don’t come back, but that’s how it is.
“The WNBA, if you want us to be here, you have to pay us more. It’s business, it’s how it works, and that’s all that means,” Williams concluded.
Fans Critical Of WNBA’s Lack Of Caitlin Clark Promotion
According to many fans, the WNBA has spent more time trying to temper the explosive popularity of Caitlin Clark and forcefully highlight other players that people simply aren’t as interested in, instead of focusing on capitalizing off the historic rookie class and the new audience that their presence has afforded the league.
More branding. More highlighting the most popular players. Listen to the fans and open up the books so there’s not this disconnect between what the players feel they should be making and what the league is paying.
The $200 million per year over the next decade for media rights should provide the WNBA with the ability to raise salaries significantly, but right now, any complaint is just that until the two sides get together and officially hash out these issues.
Opinions like Gabby Williams’ are really just to set the groundwork for future negotiations and garner the sympathy of the public in case of a work stoppage. The developments will be interesting going forward as far as the role Cailtin Clark, who usually stays clear of off court drama, plays in all of this.
