Angel Reese of the ‘Unapologetically Angel’ podcast, the McDonald’s Angel Reese Special combo meal (BBQ Bacon Quarter Pounder, Medium Fries, Drink), and the WNBA’s Chicago Sky, made headlines this weekend by “threatening” to sit out if the WNBA doesn’t start paying them more. I put that in quotations, because I’m not sure it’s even fair to call what Angel Reese said a threat. It casually came up on her podcast in a conversation with her teammate Dijona Carrington. And I think Angel Reese was mostly just repeating something she heard, considering she said herself that she hasn’t been to any of the meetings. But she did mention how if the players don’t get what they want in the next CBA, they could sit out for more money. Which to be fair, is true of any person at any job anywhere. If your job doesn’t give you whatever amount of money or perks you’ve deem as the minimum amount you’ll work for, then you’re not going to do the job. It’s a pretty regular concept. 

Now whether or not people think your demands are valid, or if they’re completely delusional is a whole different story. In the WNBA’s case, if any player outside of Caitlin Clark, and especially if Angel Reese implies that there could be a situation where they sit out for more money, it’s going to come off as bat shit ridiculous to a lot of people. Because if you take a look at the numbers, you’ll quickly see that “The WNBA operated at a $40M loss last year”, and “The WNBA hasn’t turned a profit in the history of their existence.”

So for anybody working at a company with those numbers, the thought of striking for more money is laughable. At least from a financial standpoint. And in business, what other standpoint even matters? When Angel Reese says something like that, you know what the response is going to be.

Obviously that sentiment is true for a majority of sports fans. Many people couldn’t care less if the WNBA existed or not. And it would probably be better for the NBA’s bottom line if they weren’t having to subsidize the WNBA. But when you really think about it… if WNBA players went on strike for more money… I think they might have more of a leg to stand on than what people want to believe. All people want to do is point at the numbers. Which makes perfect sense. In almost any other situation in the world, that’s the only thing that would matter. But again… the WNBA hasn’t turned a profit in the history of their league. They have been operating at a loss forever. The WNBA isn’t there to make the NBA money. If it were, it would have folded a long time ago.

On the other hand, the NBA is thriving. People will tell you it’s dying because they shoot too many 3-pointers, and LeBron’s flopping has singlehandedly made basketball unwatchable for them. But their revenue continues to go up. Every year the NBA rakes in billions and billions of dollars hand over fist.

So considering how much money the NBA makes… think about the PR headache that would come with the WNBA sitting out for more money, because the NBA (who made $11.34 billion in revenue last year) refuses to raise their minimum salary to six-digits. Sports fans say, “We wouldn’t even notice if the WNBA didn’t exist”. But it’s not sports fans the NBA is worried about dealing with. It’s barely even WNBA fans they’re worried about. It’s people who’ve never watched a basketball game (men’s or women’s) in their entire lives, who will see that women are making SO MUCH less than men, and only look at surface facts like “The average WNBA salary is 1% of the average NBA salary”, and “NBA benchwarmers are on $5M contracts, while WNBA all-stars need to play sketch Eastern European basketball in the off-season to make a living wage.” It doesn’t matter where the noise is coming from. The NBA doesn’t want to deal with bad press on any level. No matter how smart of a business move, or how in the right they may be.

It doesn’t matter that it’s simple supply and demand. It doesn’t matter that the WNBA season is half a long. That the WNBA consistently operate at a loss. The WNBA exists because the NBA wants to provide the best women’s basketball players in the world a league to play in. They want to run a league that little girls who love basketball can look up to, and can aspire to play in when they grow up. They want to grow the game at all levels. The NBA wants to be viewed as a progressive organization. That’s the image they’ve always gone for, and care so deeply about projecting to the world.

So what’s easier for them? Getting into a long dragged out stand off with the WNBA’s Player’s Association over an amount of money that the NBA makes in one week of regular season games? Or just paying WNBA player’s enough money so that they don’t have to play in Russia in the off-season. Then the NBA can pat themselves on the back and say, “Good job us. We’re good people. We support women’s sports.” 

It’s a win-win for both sides. All for an amount of money that’s completely negligible to the NBA. They could probably double the salaries of the entire WNBA and it wouldn’t matter to them in the slightest. I’m not saying WNBA players would be right or wrong to hold out. I just see people dunking all over the idea that they would ever possibly consider it, because they don’t bring in any money. But they’re not negotiating with money. They пegotiating with the NBA’s own image. They’re negotiating with negative headlines. All things considered, I think WNBA players have more pull with the NBA than people think. Not because they’re bringing in millions of dollars. But because the NBA makes so much fucking money, and it’s easier for them to pay up than deal with the fallout of a WNBA player’s strike. They don’t want to shut down the WNBA in the prime of Caitlin Clark’s career. The don’t want to do anything that can be viewed as “not growing the game”. You don’t think NBA players would publicly speak up on behalf of WNBA players if they went on strike? The NBA doesn’t want that. The NBA isn’t saying no to LeBron James. The last thing Adam Silver and the NBA want to do is go to war with women’s basketball.

If you want to call it charity, that’s probably fair. In many ways it’s kind of like charity. But having the WNBA is a huge part of the image that the NBA cares so deeply about. I have no idea how probable a WNBA hold out even is. But at this point, I want to see it happen just out of pure curiosity. I’d be very interested to see WNBA players attempt to call the NBA’s bluff. Just dare them to not have a WNBA season because they refuse to increase player salaries by $50k. Maybe the NBA really is that ruthless. From a financial perspective, they’d have no reason not to be. But part of me thinks the second LeBron James and Caitlin Clark tweet about what the WNBA means to them… the second they weaponize pictures of Kobe Bryant and his daughter (RIP)… the NBA would fold faster than the old Chinese woman in San Francisco who showed me and my brothers how to make fortune cookies at the end of the Golden Gate Fortune Cookie Factory tour.