W.N.B.A. Players, Bargaining Power Soaring, Seek Expert Advice on Labor Deal

W.N.B.A players have never had more leverage than they have right now.

A sparkling rookie class, headlined by Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, has catapulted a league that was already growing into a new stratosphere in terms of popularity and visibility. Attendance and viewership records are being shattered, and everyone wants to know why the players’ salaries aren’t higher. The league is about to receive a windfall from a newly negotiated media rights deal which is expected to earn it at least six times what it does in the current deal, according to a person familiar with the numbers who spoke on condition of anonymity because the deal has not been finalized.

It would seem an ideal time to take advantage of the opportunity they have this fall to opt out of their collective bargaining agreement, two years before it is set to expire.

But the players’ union doesn’t want to be too hasty. So last month, it created a five-person advisory committee consisting of lawyers, academics and financial and media professionals to help its members parse the decision.

“What we need to do as players and as part of the P.A. is we make a united decision, but also listen to the pros and the cons both ways,” said Breanna Stewart, forward for the New York Liberty and the league’s most valuable player last season. “Staying in, opting out — what are our goals going forward, especially after the things that have changed this year?” said Stewart, a vice president for the union.

The advisers are Claudia Goldin, a Harvard professor who won the Nobel Prize in economics last year for her work on women in the labor market; W. Charles Bennett, a former F.B.I. agent, as well as an accountant and fraud investigator; Deborah Willig, managing partner at the Philadelphia law firm Willig, Williams and Davidson, who has negotiated on behalf of other players’ unions; Tag Garson, a longtime executive in sports and entertainment; and David Cooper, a communications specialist and professor at New York University.

The professional credentials of the advisory group are a sign of the importance the union is placing on the next contract. Travel arrangements — players hope to codify charter flights into the next C.B.A. — salaries and the structure of revenue sharing are expected to be significant issues.