In the world of professional sports, there is a fine line between “knowing your worth” and “delusional entitlement.” According to WNBA legend Rebecca Lobo and a growing chorus of critics, the current generation of WNBA players has not just crossed that line—they have sprinted past it and run straight off a cliff.
The tension has been building for months, but it exploded this week when Lobo, one of the league’s original stars from 1997, went on Sue Bird and Megan Rapinoe’s podcast, A Touch More. Instead of offering the usual platitudes about “growing the game,” Lobo delivered a scathing critique that has shaken the foundation of the players’ public relations strategy.
“Free Scooters and Tricycles”
Lobo didn’t mince words. She contrasted the current players’ rejection of million-dollar salary offers with the reality of her own playing days. “When I played in this dump, we were playing for prizes… free scooters, tricycles,” she said. Her message was clear: The players had the public’s support during the Caitlin Clark boom, but they squandered it with what she termed “unbelievable entitlement.”
By calling offers that would make them the highest-paid women athletes in team sports history a “slap in the face,” the players have alienated the very fans who were just starting to pay attention. It’s a classic case of reading the room wrong. Fans who work 9-to-5 jobs don’t want to hear athletes complain about a $500,000 average salary when the league has never turned a profit.
The “Vince McMahon” Power Play
But the insults are just the surface noise. The real story is the strategic nuke the WNBA owners are preparing to drop on the players’ union.
The video analysis draws a chilling parallel between WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert and WWE Chairman Vince McMahon. In 1997, McMahon was burned by Bret Hart, a star who had too much leverage. McMahon vowed never to let talent be bigger than the brand again.
Engelbert is seemingly applying the same ruthless logic. The league has proposed expanding the season from 44 to 54 games. On paper, this looks like growth. In reality, it is a suffocating embrace designed to kill the competition.
The new schedule would start training camp in March and run the Finals into November. This effectively monopolizes the calendar. Why does this matter? Because it deliberately targets the “Unrivaled” league.
Killing “Unrivaled” to Kill Leverage
“Unrivaled,” the 3-on-3 league founded by Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier, was supposed to be the players’ leverage. It was their “Plan B”—a way to earn six figures in the offseason without going overseas. It gave them the power to say “no” to the WNBA because they had another domestic option.
The WNBA’s new schedule destroys that option. If the WNBA season eats up March and November, there is no window for Unrivaled to operate. Players cannot physically do both. The prioritization rules already penalize players for missing WNBA time. This forces a binary choice: Play in the WNBA, or play in Unrivaled. You can’t have both.
And let’s be honest: Unrivaled cannot survive without WNBA stars. By stretching the season, Engelbert is systematically dismantling the players’ alternative income streams. It is a business move of pure, cold-blooded genius. It reminds the players that they are, in the words of one critic, “entry-level employees” in a business that has been subsidized for 28 years.
The Reality of “False Support”
The players have been operating under the assumption that they have massive leverage because of the “Caitlin Clark Effect.” Ratings are up, arenas are full (when she plays), and the buzz is palpable.
But as the analysis points out, this leverage is an illusion. The NBA owners, who fund the WNBA, view it as a charitable endeavor or a “tax write-off.” It loses money every year. If the players strike, the owners actually save money. That is the opposite of leverage. In the NBA, a strike costs owners billions. In the WNBA, a strike is just a budget cut.
The players believed their own hype. They thought the “wedding guests” (the fans who showed up for the hype) were going to stay for the marriage. But without the product on the court, and with a public increasingly turned off by the salary complaints, that support is evaporating.
The Hard Truth
Rebecca Lobo’s “ungrateful” comment might have been harsh, but it struck a nerve because it contained a kernel of truth. The current players are standing on the shoulders of women who played for peanuts, yet they are risking the league’s future by demanding a piece of a pie that doesn’t exist yet.
The WNBA is making sure the players know who is boss. The 54-game schedule is an ultimatum: “This is our league. We set the rules. If you don’t like it, good luck finding a 3-on-3 league that pays the bills.”
The “Unrivaled” era might be over before it even really began, crushed by the very league it tried to challenge. The players wanted a war. They are about to find out that the owners have much bigger guns.
