Around the Sun

‘Project B’: A Bargaining Chip for the WNBA Players—And a Nightmare for the Owners

By Anthony Price 

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Paige Bueckers at the WNBA All-Star game in Indianopolis.

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​Professional sports in America are big business. In 2023-2024, the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and MLS generated over $49 billion in revenue, according to Visual Capitalist. 
 
“It takes money to make money” the saying goes—and in pro sports, that’s why the owners of teams are billionaires and the players are millionaires. 

​Among those billionaires are Joe Lacob and Peter Guber, co-owners of both the Golden State Valkyries of the WNBA and the Golden State Warriors of the NBA. The Warriors are valued at $9.14 billion—the most valuable NBA franchise, according to Sportico. 
 
The Golden State Valkyries, who played their first season in 2025 and made the playoffs, are already the most valuable WNBA team at $500 million. Both franchises pack the Chase Center to sold-out crowds. 
 
Lacob is ambitious. He vowed to deliver a Valkyries championship within five years and to make the team the most valuable franchise in all of women’s sports. 
 
But there’s a storm brewing. If a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) isn’t signed by the end of October, the good times could screech to a halt. And looming on the horizon is something that could shake the league to its core: a new women’s league ready to challenge the WNBA’s throne. 

But there’s a storm brewing.

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Deal Breaker: Low Salaries 
 
Women’s basketball has the audience. 
 
The WNBA Finals between the Las Vegas Aces and the Phoenix Mercury averaged 1.5 million viewers across the four-game sweep. The year before, the New York Liberty and Minnesota Lynx drew a record 1.6 million viewers—game five alone attracted 2.15 million viewers. 
 
Now the spotlight has shifted from the court to the negotiating table.
 
With big bucks on the line, the WNBA and the Women’s National Basketball Players Association have locked horns, battling for position in what may be the most consequential CBA in league history. The WNBA has added millions of fans, a multibillion-dollar media rights deal, and is expanding from 13 to 18 franchises over the next five years. 
 
The players opted out of the current CBA in October 2024, and it expires on October 31. Negotiations have been tense, with both sides seemingly standing on opposite rims of the Grand Canyon—and Cathy Engelbert, the league’s unpopular commissioner, presiding in the middle. 

And just beyond the negotiating table looms a new threat: “Project B,” a proposed women’s basketball league that, according to The Athletic, could give players the leverage they need to change the game.

Angel Reese at the WNBA All-Star game in Indianapolis.

​Follow the Money 
 
Caitlin Clark and A’ja Wilson are millionaires—but not because of their WNBA paychecks. Their bank accounts are built on endorsement deals. 
 
Clark, the rookie who brought legions of new fans to the league, makes less than $80,000 a year on her WNBA contract, barely above the veteran minimum salary of  $78,831. Las Vegas Aces’ A’ja Wilson, MVP of the 2025 regular season and Finals, makes $200,000 a year. The supermax salary for a WNBA player is under $250,000. 
 
Now compare that with Kevin Durant. The Houston Rockets star signed a two-year, $90 million extension—leaving $30 million on the table, according to ESPN. Durant was eligible for an NBA supermax contract. His total career earnings are projected to hit $598.2 million, the highest in history NBA history. 
 
The difference isn’t just star power—it’s structure. NBA owners and players split basketball-related revenue just about evenly, 50% each. In the WNBA? Players get about 9.3%. 

Caitlin Clark and A’ja Wilson are millionaires—but not because of their WNBA paychecks.

​Project B’: A Negotiating Chip
 
The WNBA owners claim poverty, while the money is rushing in like the Colorado River in the spring. 
 
Here’s what we actually know: The league collected $250 million in franchise fees from upcoming expansion teams in Detroit, Cleveland and Philadelphia. Just a few years earlier, the Valkyries paid $50 million to join. Portland Fire, entering in 2026, paid $75 million. Toronto’s new franchise paid $50 million. 
 
And that’s not the only revenue stream. A new $2.2 billion media-rights deal begins in 2026, and will bring money into the league for over 11 years. 
 
As Claudia Goldin, a Nobel Prize winning economist at Harvard University, wrote in the New York Times in early June 2025: 
 
“The world of women’s professional basketball is ripe for an economic update that better reflects its influence and irresistibility. The people who run the N.B.A. and W.N.B.A. are instead badly underpaying the women who entertain and thrill us with their feats of athleticism.” 

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Golden State Valkyries' Veronica Burton.

​Help is coming soon. Sky-high franchise valuations of WNBA teams have attracted a major threat to the league. 
 
Tech entrepreneurs Grady Burnett (formerly of Google and Meta) and Geoff Prentice (a co-founder of Skype) are launching “Project B,” a new professional women’s basketball league. It will feature six teams of up to 11 players each, competing in seven two-week tournaments across the Americas, Asia and Europe. 
 
The timing couldn’t be worse for the WNBA owners, Project B plans to attract top international talent, including WNBA players—some of whom have already signed, according to Burnett. He thinks the league can become a multi-billion-dollar venture. 
 
“The growth in women’s sports rivals anything in AI right now,” Burnett told The Athletic. 

The people who run the N.B.A. and W.N.B.A. are instead badly underpaying the women who entertain and thrill us with their feats of athleticism.

It’s Deal Time 
 
The WNBA’s CBA showdown is about more than dollars and cents. It’s about who gets to shape the future of the game.
 
Yes, the negotiations will be messy. They might even go into overtime But both sides have too much at stake not to get a deal done. The leagues momentum is real, fueled by record attendance, expansion franchises, and a new generation of stars. 
 
Meanwhile, competition is rising. Unrivaled—the 3-on-3 women’s basketball league founded by the Minnesota Lynx’s Napheesa Collier and New York Liberty’s Breanna Stewart—is adding two new teams in 2026. And Project B is waiting in the wings with deep pockets and global ambitions.  
 
Now is the time to negotiate a deal that finally pays women what they’re worth—a deal worthy of the value they created over nearly three decades of effort. 
 
The money is there. But if the owners refuse to share the wealth now, they may lose in the future.

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​Anthony Price is an entrepreneur, author and publisher of CT Hoops Magazine. Around the Sun is a weekly column about the Connecticut Sun.