'Pay Us What You Owe Us': Inside the WNBPA's statement-making All-Star Weekend

THE NOW-LEGENDARY 72-hour livestream from Stud Budz duo Courtney Williams and Natisha Hiedeman left very little unseen from the 2025 WNBA All-Star Weekend in Indianapolis. But the Minnesota Lynx teammates' Twitch stream didn't fully capture one of the weekend's most pivotal moments.

Nneka Ogwumike, president of the Women's National Basketball Players Association, was getting ready for the WNBPA's game-day breakfast at the Intercontinental Hotel in downtown Indianapolis, when she saw Williams and Hiedeman's social media manager, the one tasked with holding the phone for the weekend-long stream. Williams and Hiedeman had sent him downstairs to bring back food, and he was having trouble getting past WNBPA security.

Ogwumike took matters into her own hands. She went upstairs to find a hungover Williams and Hiedeman still in bed, where -- in front of the Stud Budz's 73,000 Twitch followers -- she implored Williams, an All-Star reserve, to get up for a players meeting in 10 minutes.

It's not uncommon for players to bail on the PA's annual game-day gathering, which, a source close to the union said, was started years ago as a response to the All-Stars not getting fed on game day. Running from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m., it's hardly appealing to get up that early coming off a long night out. But this time, things were different.

In between stops at the omelet station and muffin display, the players used the tail end of the breakfast to finalize their plans to wear black shirts that read "Pay Us What You Owe Us" while warming up for Saturday's All-Star Game. Once the shirts were revealed before tip-off, the statement traveled quickly, igniting debate around the issues that have been simmering behind the scenes as players and the WNBA engage in negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement that both sides expect to be transformative.

Two days earlier, over 40 players had shown up for an in-person bargaining session with WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert, members of the league's CBA committee and league counsel -- a meeting some players described after as a "wasted opportunity." It was meant as a demonstration of power-in-numbers, but for over a week, sources with knowledge of the union's planning told ESPN the 22 All-Stars had been discussing a far more public way of using the All-Star stage to make a statement.

In the past, union leaders might have given a list of talking points to players to reference when they were inevitably asked about the negotiations and how they hoped the new CBA might reflect the WNBA's exponential growth in revenue and cultural resonance over the past few years as young stars like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers entered the league. But sources said the players agreed it was important to make one clear, concise and collective statement.

The idea of a demonstration, and eventually doing one with shirts, had been discussed by the executive council and informally among the All-Stars since the full rosters were decided. Everyone involved liked the idea, but agreed it had to be unanimous. Which is why Ogwumike was so determined to wake up Williams, a member of Team Collier, and get her to the breakfast meeting.

If any of the 22 All-Stars objected to the idea, they wouldn't have gone through with it. But by the end of the night, it wasn't just the players' solidarity that was unmistakable. As "pay them" chants rang from fans throughout Gainbridge Fieldhouse when Engelbert presented Napheesa Collier the MVP trophy, it set the stage as the story of the second half of the WNBA season as the current CBA's late October expiration date looms.

"I know it's only the halfway point of the year," a league source said, "but it may very well be the biggest moment in sports for 2025."

HEADING INTO THE All-Star break, the union had two main objectives: to get as many players as possible to the in-person bargaining session with the league on Thursday so they could hear the league's position -- and the league could hear theirs -- and to use the game's platform to its greatest impact.

The union worked to get high turnout for what would be the first in-person CBA meeting with players since December, ultimately yielding a group of over 40 members -- veterans from Ogwumike, Breanna Stewart and Sydney Colson to newcomers Clark, Reese and Bueckers, and some players who flew into town just to attend the meeting. So many players turned out that they had to bring more chairs to the table. The collective showing harkened back to their all-players meeting to discuss social justice issues and how to move forward as a unit during the 2020 season, which was played in a bubble in Florida due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Meanwhile, the idea of making a stand at the All-Star Game -- in front of a sellout crowd and during a prime-time tipoff on ABC -- had been brewing well before players arrived in Indianapolis.

It started with conversations with executive committee members, then expanded to bring aboard the other All-Stars once rosters were determined. It helped that four members of the union's top leadership -- Ogwumike, first vice president Kelsey Plum and vice presidents Collier and Stewart -- were tabbed as All-Stars, three of them on the early end as starters.

According to league sources, players tossed around various ideas -- such as holding the ball to run out the shot clock. They wanted something that didn't require an explanation. That couldn't be taken out of context, misconstrued unintentionally or deliberately. Understanding there could be repercussions to anything radical, they shied away from anything too disruptive.

The players gravitated toward the simple yet direct statement of wearing shirts -- after all, as one player told ESPN, "We know best how to do something with a T-shirt."

T-shirts have been a vehicle of activism in the WNBA for years. In the 2020 bubble, players donned "Vote Warnock" T-shirts to oppose then-Atlanta Dream owner Kelly Loeffler and raise the profile of Raphael Warnock, who was ultimately elected U.S. senator in Georgia, helping flip the Senate to an effectively Democratic majority. That same season, members of the Washington Mystics wore shirts with bullet holes drawn on them to protest the shooting of Jacob Blake, a Black man, by police, before that night's games were postponed.

Talking CBA negotiations and how far the WNBPA has come since it was formed in 1998. pic.twitter.com/LNoIofagWq

— Rebecca Lobo (@RebeccaLobo) July 22, 2025

The league hasn't always responded well to such displays. In 2016, the WNBA initially fined teams and the players who wore shirts in support of the Black Lives Matter movement before a leaguewide outcry prompted then-WNBA president Lisa Borders to rescind them.

The new CBA will address a variety of topics, everything from expansion draft rules to family planning and retirement benefits. But the issue at the crux of the negotiations thus far, sources said, involves how the players' share of the business is determined.

Simply put, the players want a system that allows them to earn a greater percentage of the revenue pie as the business continues to grow. And to do that, they first want to know how much revenue each team is bringing in.

Ogwumike said Saturday in Indianapolis that the league is proposing a system with a fixed percentage, while the players want "a better share where our salaries grow with the business, and not just a fixed percentage over time."

"We see the growth of the league, and as it stands, the current salary system is not really paying us what we're owed," Ogwumike said after the game. "And we want to be able to have that fair share moving forward, especially as we see all of the investment going in, and we want to be able to have our salaries reflected in a structure that makes sense for us."

For example, players want an explanation for why the rapid increases in valuations of franchises -- the Las Vegas Aces were purchased for $2 million in 2021 but are now valued at $310 million, according to Forbes, while recent expansion fees are coming in at $250 million after the Golden State Valkyries paid $50 million in October 2023 -- can't lead to greater revenue that then filters back to them.

"The players are what is building this brand and this league," Collier said. "There is no league without the players, and past, present, the ones coming up, they're the ones that have put in the blood, sweat and tears for the new money that's coming in. And so, we feel we are owed a piece of the pie that we helped create."

This sentiment was the genesis of the statement they ended up printing on their warmup shirts, which were made prior to arriving in Indianapolis. Some have speculated that it came from a lyric in Jay-Z's 2001 hit single "Izzo (H.O.V.A.)" that contains the line, "pay us like you owe us."

But according to sources with knowledge of the discussions, the statement was a nod to merchandise from the National Women's Law Center, a partner organization and frequent resource for WNBPA, that reads "Pay Me What You Owe Me."

The WNBPA breakfast was their opportunity to seal the decision and put their plan into action. From the start, the players knew they weren't going to do a collective demonstration unless all of them agreed. The only issue was that there were All-Stars missing from that gathering, particularly from Team Clark, as they recovered from the events of the weekend and parties from the night before.

According to sources, at least one member of Team Clark who attended the meeting was entrusted to ensure the message got delivered to the All-Stars who weren't at the breakfast. But to confirm everyone was on board with the plan, Ogwumike, Collier and Stewart visited the Team Clark locker room before the game.

They were, and 22 of the most visible players in the league -- young and old, first-timers to 10-time All-Stars -- unzipped their warmups to reveal the surprise message, sending shock waves to those watching in person and on TV, throughout Indianapolis and beyond.

"It was super important that they all decided, 'Yes, we'll do this,'" one league source said. "Caitlin did it, Angel did it. They were both at the [Thursday] meeting. Paige did it. They are bought in, they're serious about this, and they're unified."

THE PLAYERS MIGHT have been hopeful that the crowd of 16,000-plus in Gainbridge Fieldhouse would support their pregame display. But they couldn't have anticipated the reaction they would get from those inside the arena and the way the players' CBA fight became the dominant storyline coming out of All-Star Weekend -- something they believe can help put pressure on the league once negotiations resume.

"The fans making that chant," Collier said postgame, "that gave me chills."

"That fan support," one source close to the initiative added, "it released a valve of pressure for them."

On social media the reaction was just as swift -- and strong -- as it was inside the arena.

Support came from various ends of the political spectrum, from former first lady and Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton to Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy.

I see lots of morons trying to act like WNBA players don't deserve more money. They are throwing around this "lost 50 million" number that nobody even knows where it comes from. The finances of the league are a mess, tied in with NBA and purposely murkey. The owners don't...

— Dave Portnoy (@stoolpresidente) July 20, 2025

But the next day's news cycle was very different. Instead of a discussion about how players should benefit from the growth of the league, or how the league will change once all the free agents who signed one-year contracts this winter in anticipation of a new CBA will be free agents again, an offhand comment from Plum spawned a very different discussion.

At her postgame news conference Plum attempted to lighten the mood. Plum, as first vice president of the player's association, had been involved in the planning of the T-shirts from the beginning, sources said. When she quipped, "not to tattletale, but zero members of Team Clark were very present for [the Saturday morning meeting]," laughing as she said it, she assumed everyone understood that she was joking about partying too hard ahead of the early morning meeting.

Without context Plum's comments landed as either a shot at Clark or as a lack of solidarity in the statement -- the kind of misunderstanding the single, unified gesture was supposed to eliminate.

The WNBA regular season resumed Tuesday with 10 teams in action. Basketball carried on, business as usual. But all eyes over the next three months will be fixed on what happens behind the scenes.

Players expressed frustration that Thursday's meeting -- likely the last opportunity to get so many players around the bargaining table -- didn't yield more progress as the clock ticks toward the CBA's expiration date. Making matters even more timely is that a two-team expansion draft is supposed to happen in December with the arrival of teams in Toronto and Portland, followed by the vast majority of veterans hitting free agency in January.

Both sides have said they are hopeful they can get a deal done and avoid a work stoppage. But for now, WNBA players -- not just the 22 All-Stars but the 130 or so others -- must decide how they want to build off the statement they made and the support they garnered. And see whether they can turn Saturday's momentum into lasting change.

"It was a great, really, really great response," a league source said. "I think that fuels them for the next time."