Chapter 1: What is the background of Alysha Clark and her journey in the WNBA?
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There's this player in the WNBA, her name is Alicia Clark, who has kind of a reputation.
I think my teammates would describe me as a tough, gritty, winning, like a winner. Can you go into winner a little bit? Like, what does that mean? I'm going to be in the right position at the right time. I'm going to be prepared. Yeah, I just want to win at all costs. And whatever that looks like, whatever I need to do is what I'll do. And I have a track record of winning.
Yeah, she's understating it a little bit. Actually, when we were talking to her, the only time she seemed kind of bored was when she was listing her accomplishments.
Going back to high school, like I won a state championship. She went on to win championships in college and in overseas leagues.
Then in the WNBA, winning three championships with three of the, how many teams have I played for?
So just to be clear, we're talking to a three-time WNBA champion. Yes. Awesome. But recently, she took part in a competition that had higher stakes than any game she's ever played.
Alicia knows long, grueling workouts. She's learned dozens of defensive schemes and offensive plays. She's used to practicing, preparing, strategizing. But this was a totally different kind of endurance challenge.
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Chapter 2: How did the WNBA players' contract negotiations begin?
Our practice court was a church gym.
Alicia says they flew economy, in middle seats if you were a rookie, didn't matter how tall you were. And when they traveled, most players had roommates.
Adults, professional athletes, sharing a hotel room.
Did you say anything about it? Like, I know you were like, well, this is good, but were you, did it occur to you, be like, wait, should I get more?
Oh no, there was no thought or even opportunity to get more. That's just what you got.
At the time, the WNBA was not turning a profit, which is typical for a new league. Many professional sports leagues don't make money for a while. Alicia says when the WNBA players asked for more money, they were always told the same thing. No one comes to the games. The revenue just isn't there. In the beginning, the NBA owned the WNBA.
They're still majority owners. And in their 2002 negotiations, the NBA commissioner threatened to cancel the upcoming season if they couldn't reach an agreement.
But over Alicia's career, women's basketball has changed a lot. It started slow. More people going to games, more television stations showing them. During the height of the pandemic, they were one of the only sports on television. And ever since, women's basketball has gone bonkers. Remember when Kaitlyn Clark broke the NCAA all-time scoring record?
Here comes Clark. How will she go for history? There it is!
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Chapter 3: What role did Claudia Golden play in the negotiations?
They wanted what's called revenue share, which Alicia says she didn't really understand in her rookie years.
Like, you know what revenue is, and you know, like, obviously revenue share is like, okay, you're sharing in the money that's coming in. But, like, what does that actually look like in the terms that they have?
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.
If the business grew, our share stayed the same.
So they sent their first proposal to the league in February of 2025. And what they asked for was 40% of revenue to split between players. We know now they were willing to settle for less. But negotiators usually start out with something called an anchor number. to influence the direction of negotiations. By the way, NBA players get about 50% of rev share using a different system.
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.
So they're going back and forth, and Alicia and the other negotiators are following along with help from, you could say, the Claudia Golden team, the math team.
I'm a visual person, so I needed to see. Like, you can tell me something, but I'm like, let me just see it. And so they created, like, pie charts for us. I love pie charts. You know, it's amazing. And so it's like, hey, here is what happened, right? Like, here's the revenue. Here's their estimated what they're saying. What they're offering you is this piece.
Okay, but they told the players, now watch the pie as the years go by. Look at the revenue the league is projecting.
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Chapter 4: What were the initial demands of the WNBA players during negotiations?
And Alicia said the first meeting between the players and the league was very passionate.
Because at this point, we were so pissed off at how... At how they were moving.
In her diary, she wrote down what she heard the league say after they all sat down. This is from March 10th.
Okay. Let me double check my... Yeah. It was like, we're putting forth a proposal now. We'd like to walk out tonight and get a deal done. On day one. We were like... I'm sorry, what?
That didn't happen. Instead, for days, they went back and forth with proposals covering not just RevShare, but all the other little details. Like when the season should start, how many training staff should there be, should the players be provided with cars.
Alicia and the other players on the exec committee quickly settled into a routine. They did their workouts in the morning and then in the afternoon. They negotiated. And Alicia kept diary entries.
We met today at 1245 to go through the proposal the league sent after 5 a.m. We went through rev share, housing.
They did make some progress right away with the help of an aptly nicknamed player who was on the negotiation team.
Breezy was working on her charts with the numbers and salaries. And, you know, that's why we called her Breezy Hidden Figures Turner.
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Chapter 5: How did the league respond to the players' proposals?
So we could sit in front of you and negotiate and talk about these things, but you're not even allowing us to do that.
Alicia says the players had lowered and lowered their rev share ask from 40% all the way down to 20. But they couldn't go any lower and still represent what the players said they wanted.
And I'm like, why do we keep allowing them to like, blow through what we're asking. Like, we've asked for a response, and they keep being like, okay, maybe a little bit later, in a little bit, in a little bit. And I'm like, at what point are we going to put our foot down?
That's when Alicia and her team of negotiators started really considering their own hard bargaining tactic. Maybe the biggest, hardest, bargainiest tactic yet. That's after the break. Sitting at that big rectangular negotiating table in their Fifth Avenue hotel, Alicia Clark and Breonna Turner were thinking more and more about a hard bargaining tactic of last resort.
One they really didn't want to use, but they had also planned for.
See, a few months earlier, Alicia and Brianna and the whole negotiating team had gone to the other 150-plus players in the league and asked them, basically, hey, what do you want to do if they don't give us what we want?
They were basically asking the players for their version of what experienced negotiators call BATNA, Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement, meaning what will you do if you don't reach a deal?
And what the players said? We walk. They authorize the strike, if necessary. And Alicia says this was a long time in the making.
Every meeting that we had as player leadership, executive committee, over the course of these last 18 months, it was save your money. Tell your teammates to save their money. Be sure you're saving your money. Be sure you're saving your money.
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Chapter 6: What negotiation tactics did Alysha and her team use?
And the ref share is just one of the big changes. The players secured housing for everyone and even one-time payments to retired players so they get a cut too. And salaries overall are way higher.
The lowest paid player in 2026 will make more than the highest paid player in 2025.
So now, the player's math, built on the math of a Nobel laureate, is embedded in the pages of every WNBA player's contract. Alicia gets to keep her reputation as a winner. And as for Brianna, also known as Hidden Figures… Have you done anything for yourself to celebrate?
I got myself a new financial advisor.
That's awesome. This episode was produced by me, Emma Peasley, with help from Willow Rubin. It was edited by Marianne McCune. It was fact-checked by Vito Emanuel. It was engineered by Jimmy Keeley and James Willis. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.
Special thanks to Aaron Drake, Dave Barry, and Nola Agha. I'm Erica Barris. And I'm Emma Peasley.
This is NPR. Thanks for listening.
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