INDIANAPOLIS -- Shortly before tip-off of the 2025 WNBA All-Star Game, the players took the floor for warm-ups. Instead of their league-issued gear, they were wearing T-shirts with a clear message regarding their ongoing collective bargaining agreement negotiations with the league: "Pay us what you owe us." 

Los Angeles Sparks guard Kelsey Plum said the players held a meeting Saturday morning and that's when they made the decision to wear the shirts.

The tone stayed the same after the game as Washington Mystics' Brittney Sykes held a sign that read "pay the players" while Team Collier, the winning team, was being interviewed in the middle of the court. 

The crowd at Gainbridge Fieldhouse seemed to be in full support as they chanted "pay the players" as WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert was speaking. Plum said the players didn't know the crowd was going to do that but described it as "a very powerful moment."

Earlier in the night, Napheesa Collier and Caitlin Clark, the All-Star captains, told reporters the players are taking the labor battle "very seriously." 

"We have the most participation in league history. I think we had close to 40 players in our league meeting," Collier said. "I think it just sends a really strong message that we're standing really firm on the certain areas that we feel really strongly about that we need to improve on, and I think we got that message across."

In October 2024, the Women's National Basketball Players Association opted out of the current CBA, which will run through the end of the 2025 season. Since then, little progress has been made on a new CBA. The league and the WNBPA met in person this weekend for the first time since December, but the talks only served to frustrate the players. 

"I think [Thursday's] meeting was good for the fact that we could be in the same room as the league and the board of governors and that type of thing, but I think, to be frank, it was a wasted opportunity," New York Liberty star Breanna Stewart said. "We could have really gotten into a deeper dive of everything, but we there was a lot of fluff that we couldn't get past, and it sucks because situations like that aren't gonna happen again because players are playing for different teams and different leagues and this is the only time to have a group together like this."

Breanna Stewart says WNBA players' CBA meeting with league was a 'wasted opportunity'

Jack Maloney

From the day the players opted out, they have made it clear they are seeking "transformational change." While the league has been sympathetic to issues such as family planning, it has not been as keen on the players' demands for higher salaries and a bigger share of revenue. 

"Based on their most recent proposal, we just aren't able to get to a place where we're actually even talking about the same thing," Stewart said. "So I think that's the hardest thing. Our first offer and then their counter was, like, black and white."

The two sides hope to have a new agreement in place by October, but are quickly running out of time to make that happen. While it's possible for deadlines to be extended -- the most recent CBA was ratified in January 2020, as commissioner Cathy Engelbert noted Saturday during her pre-All-Star Game press conference -- any delay would have affect the rest of the offseason calendar. 

This is set to be a busy and groundbreaking winter. Two new expansion teams, the Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo, will enter the league, and nearly every player that is not on a rookie scale contract is set to be a free agent. The expansion drafts and free agency cannot take place until a new CBA is in place. 

Neither side wants to rush through key portions of the offseason, or worse, have a work stoppage. But as of now, neither side has shown any willingness to budge. The players have been a united front all weekend, as their warm-up shirts re-emphasized. 

"Yeah, I think for myself that was the best part of [the meeting] being in the room and there's over 40 other players in this league, and I'm sure a lot more would have loved to be in there if they were in Indianapolis," Clark said. "And I think that's the most powerful thing is all the girls from across the league just being in that room together... like [Collier] said, we should be paid more. And hopefully that's the case moving forward as the league continues to grow. I think that's something that's probably the most important thing that we're in the room advocating about."