WNBA players legitimize women's pro basketball with groundbreaking CBA

It is all in principle. Players' union v. League. An agreement. Handshakes. No ink drying. Just an arrangement to avoid the catastrophes of all catastrophes. Two sides saving face to avoid facing their own music. “I Lied To You” no longer lingering in the background.

Marathon sessions with a few billion dollars hanging in the balance can do that.

So finally, the WNBA standoff came to an end. The two sides of this three-sided vision of the value and future of the league finally decided that while there may not or ever be a happy medium, a medium by any means was more important for the survival of the game than happiness.

Groundbreaking and historic (not life-changing, understand the difference) upgrades in player pay maximums and minimums. $7 million salary cap. $1.4 million super max limit for a single player, up from $250K. $600K average salary, up from $120K. $300K minimum annual salary, up from $66K. Good until 2032, with an opt-out in 2031. All in place (theoretically) while waiting to be approved by the Board of Governors. The new beginning.

What now? Now that this much-anticipated time’s arrived, that the immediate future of the “W“ is imminent? More importantly: What does it mean?

The takeaway should not be the results but what was done to get the results. The fight, the stance, the demands, the resilience, the belief. The way. The players' “unafraidedness” to stare down a league and its owners and loudly dare them to not respect their idea of fairness. Their “stick it to the Man” collective approach? Risky but necessary. And not just as a prepared embattlement tactic for this CBA. It goes way deeper.

When asked by Robin Roberts on ABC's “Good Morning America“ hours after the news broke of a deal being in place “what were the major roadblocks” that made the negotiations take 18 contentious months to arrive to the place the players and the league finally landed, players association president Nneka Ogwumike said a scripture that every professional athlete in a unionized sport should have tattooed on their body somewhere as a reminder of how to function and flow when the “powers that be” contractually question your worth.

“We came in understanding that engagement and participation were key,” Ogwumike said. “We [were] always true to our process, and we were going to end the process in the way we know our governance to work. With ratifying the vote, with getting voter turnout. I will say there were a lot of outside forces that were trying to, you know, crack our foundation. Didn’t work. We stood strong. And I feel like we can’t necessarily see them as roadblocks or obstacles, it just really bolstered and fortified exactly how union-strong that we are.”

Closing with: “I mean, one thing about athletes is that we have stamina. We were going to make it to the end no matter what.”

Any weapon forged against them shall not prosper.

It was women athletes showing up and standing up for themselves in a way that today’s male athletes never would. Not in unison, not en masse. The no-nonsense, “B.S. you not,” existential gamble the players of the “W“ took putting their perceived worth in front of their passion should be studied, not just applauded. The players in the “W“ saw each other as their own north stars, not just as one another’s allies. They stood 10 toes down and moved 10 toes forward to rise 10 toes higher.

Making an agreement look more like an accedence to demands. So beautiful.

But owners, never forget, still have ways of benefitting beyond just making money in ways most unions never see coming. The disruption of not just the upcoming season but the ongoing future of women’s basketball that was once at stake and is no longer in jeopardy, but that still doesn’t mean Kumbaya is the song all will be singing.

In the end, even with the semi-respectable 20% revenue share (for example: NBA revenue share through all Basketball Related Income [BRI] in their latest CBA fluctuates between 49% and 51% through the existence of the deal), what this did was legitimize women’s professional basketball in a way that will force the world — more importantly corporate America and basketball ownership groups specifically — to no longer look at women’s sports the same way it always had. The lens just got a little less gender-specific, hopefully.

And while they’ll never see it on the same level as they tend to view men’s sports as a professional and profitable business model, what the WNBA players will have accomplished once the proposed deal is ratified becomes just as important as what Billie Jean King, Serena and Venus Williams have done for women’s sports in the past.

It’s way more and far greater than optimization and optics. It’s transformative not simply in the execution of the agreement, but in the methods of those who were owed, not owned.