In the high-stakes game of professional sports negotiations, leverage is everything. You need a backup plan, a threat, an “ace in the hole” that forces the other side to blink. For the WNBA Players Association (WNBPA), that ace was supposed to be “Unrivaled,” the 3×3 league co-founded by Union Vice Presidents Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier. It was pitched as a revolution—a proof of concept that players didn’t need the WNBA to survive.

But this week, the revolution didn’t just stall; it crashed and burned on national television. And now, the panic inside the union is palpable.

The Ratings Disaster

The numbers are brutal, and there is no way to spin them. Between its first and second season, Unrivaled’s viewership has plummeted by a staggering 65%. We aren’t talking about a minor dip; we are talking about a freefall. Some games on TruTV struggled to crack 30,000 viewers—numbers that are literally lower than some high school football broadcasts in Texas.

The message from the sports media world was instant and unforgiving: Without the biggest stars like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, or Sabrina Ionescu, nobody is watching. The “threat” that the players could simply walk away and build their own successful league has been exposed as a hollow bluff. The audience didn’t follow the “empowerment” narrative; they followed the talent. And the talent that moves the needle stayed home.

A Historic Offer Rejected

While Unrivaled was busy imploding, the WNBA ownership group made their move, and it was a checkmate. They put a transformative offer on the table, one that would change the financial reality of women’s basketball overnight.

We are talking about raising the maximum salary from roughly $250,000 to $1.3 million—a 5x increase. The minimum salary would jump to $250,000, ensuring that even the last player on the bench makes a quarter of a million dollars. Average salaries would soar to over $530,000. It is, by all definitions, the largest pay raise in the history of women’s sports.

And the union said no.

Why? Because they are demanding 30% of gross revenue—meaning they want a cut of every dollar before expenses are paid. The league, which is still losing $40-$50 million a year despite the “Caitlin Clark bump,” countered with a generous 70% of net revenue. It is a sustainable deal versus a fantasy one. But with their leverage gone, the union’s refusal now looks less like a negotiation tactic and more like a denial of reality.

The Conflict of Interest Crisis

The optics of this situation are turning from bad to scandalous. The very people leading the union negotiations are the same people whose side projects are failing. Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier are trying to demand respect from WNBA owners while their own league, Unrivaled, is becoming an industry punchline.

To make matters worse, Union President Nneka Ogwumike has reportedly signed with “Project B,” another rival league backed by Saudi money that isn’t even scheduled to launch until 2027. So, the President is betting on a startup that doesn’t exist, the Vice Presidents are running a league that is tanking, and meanwhile, 80% of the WNBA players are stuck in a frozen free agency, unable to sign contracts or get paid.

It is a massive conflict of interest. How can leadership fight for the best WNBA deal when they are actively invested in its competitors? The rank-and-file players are starting to ask questions, and the answers are getting harder to justify.

The Danger of Irrelevance

The biggest risk now isn’t that the players won’t get paid; it’s that they will lose the fans. The public has little patience for millionaires (or soon-to-be millionaires) rejecting massive raises while the product on the court suffers. The “Caitlin Clark era” brought a wave of new fans who are here for the basketball, not the politics. If the season is delayed or cancelled because the union refused to take “yes” for an answer, those fans will leave, and they might not come back.

The WNBA holds all the cards. They have the infrastructure, the TV deals, the arenas, and the stability. The union had a bluff, and it just got called. The “Unrivaled” experiment proved one thing: the WNBA is the only game in town that matters. Now, the question is whether the union leadership can swallow their pride, sign the deal, and save the season—or if they will drive the league off a cliff just to prove a point that no one is believing anymore. It’s officially over; the leverage is gone. Now, it’s just damage control.