Emma Peasley

And that was a first big challenge for the players as they prepped to start bargaining with the league.

We exchanged emails with Claudia.

She didn't want to come on because she wanted the focus to be on the players.

And she said the math she was doing for them was not actually complicated.

It was simple.

It's all laid out in an op-ed she wrote last year for The New York Times.

Claudia wanted to find what a reasonable gap between the NBA and WNBA salaries would be by comparing their revenue.

So she looked at what the W and the NBA each bring in from advertising, streaming, and game attendance.

And part of the reason that gap existed is because of the WNBA's previous collective bargaining agreement.

The players' salaries were not tied to revenue.

They grew at a fixed rate that did not account for the incredible growth of the league.

The players did have an opportunity for some rev share from an earlier contract.

That's how they got those bonuses last year.

But the way the agreement worked, their salaries and their share of the revenue didn't grow at the same pace as the WNBA's overall revenue.

In response to the WNBA players' proposals, the league did eventually offer some big jumps in salaries.

At one point, they said they'd increase the max salary from about $250K to more than a million.

But they were still insisting on a fixed-rate system.

They were not budging on the players' rev share ask.

Okay, but they told the players, now watch the pie as the years go by.

Look at the revenue the league is projecting.