March Madness isn’t just weeks of great basketball on both the men’s and women’s side. It also means the 2025 WNBA season is inching closer. With many of the league’s players participating in the inaugural “Unrivaled” season including Chicago Sky star Angel Reese, the attention will shift following next week’s playoffs and championship games.
WNBA Player Salaries Hot Topic Entering 2025 Season
With a maximum salary of $1,507,100 to spend on each team in totality, it’s highly plausible that the league’s average salary of $119,509 per season, and $252,000 for the league’s highest-paid players doesn’t increase much, despite the new 11-Year/$2B media rights deal. The aforementioned Reese says that might not fly with many of the players.
The rebounding savant, who scored 17 points and grabbed 10 in her team’s (66-56) loss Friday to reigning WNBA Defensive Player of the Year Napheesa Collier’s No.1 seeded squad.
Reese Threatens Work Stoppage: WNBPA Opts Out Collective Bargaining Agreement
During a recent episode of her hit podcast “Unapologetically Angel,” with guest and Dallas Wings defensive standout Dijonai Carrington, Reese had a lot to say as it pertains to the WNBA’s pay scale.
“The women coming in, not this year, but next year. The ones coming next year, will still be on the rookie contract. The ones the year after, they going to get more than us, they probably going to be making more than us. I’m hurt… If y’all don’t give us what we want, we sitting out.”
The WNBPA has already opted out of its current collective bargaining agreement, meaning the deal will expire this fall rather than in 2027. With several key issues between players and the league office, a prolonged labor dispute is looming and Reese let everyone know that the players are ready to take action.
The No.7 overall pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft signed a four-year contract that pays her $324,383 which averages out to $74,909 per game. For Reese, who averaged 13 points and 13 rebounds per game as a a rookie, that may not cut it this season. Despite her making plenty of endorsement money which offsets her lack of earnings in the WNBA, the outspoken Reese is sending a warning to the league, that she and others may opt to not hoop.
Unrivaled’s Money Is A Factor
The WNBA has been around since 1997, while “Unrivaled is in its inaugural season and paying players much better than the WNBA. In fact, the average salary for the “Unrivaled” league is roughly $200K per player which makes it the highest paying league in professional women’s sports.
So, in essence, one could see why Reese and the players want to see an adequate raise, and in many ways they’re definitely deserving of it.
Fake Viral Quote Gone Wrong
As with anything these days, and especially in this social media era you can’t believe anything you see or what someone says without fact checking it for real sources.
Unfortunately, that’s not what was done earlier this week when someone with a fake Angel Reese account said this.
“We should be getting paid like NBA players,” the fake quote read.
Fake or not knowing that the minimum salary in the WNBA is only $64K, and over $1 million per season in the NBA is wild.
