The home crowd was chanting Gabby Williams even though Team USA took the gold in the Paris Summer Games. The Seattle Storm star came into the limelight after scoring a team-high 19 points against the USWBNT during the Olympics 2024 Finals. Post that, a lot of WNBA stars and fans alike wanted her to play for the league, and Williams obliged her followers when she re-signed with the Storm. After denying the request to return to the ‘Windy City’ for the unfair treatment, she has returned to share her take on W’s overseas players policy with a piece of advice for Commissioner Cathy Engelbert.

“The W thinks they don’t have to pay us more in order for us to be here. And I think I didn’t express that when I first talked about prioritization you know. Our commissioner talked about us being able to, you know, make $700,000. That’s actually not true at all. There’s not one player who makes that. And we were promised TV marketing agreements and leading marketing agreements u they have fallen quite short. So it’s still not enough for us international players to want us to stay here and that’s what’s the choice for players if I make a choice to make more money… So you know the WNBA if you want us to be here you have to pay us more. It’s business, it’s how that works, that’s all that,” Williams shared on Thursday.

The WNBA has already received a lot of flak from the participants for not matching the pay expectations. While the male counterpart NBA offers an average salary of $10 million, the WNBA only contributes $150,000 per season on average for a player as per ‘Forbes’. Therefore, this vast difference has led many stars time and again to go overseas and play internationally. Meanwhile, Engelbert in 2022 reflecting on the Brittney Griner situation had stated that a player “can make up to $700,000.”

But going by Williams’s contract, she will be making $76,535 for being a part of the Storm roster. The 28-year-old during an interview with ‘The Next’ last year had also revealed her plan of not returning to the W since it “doesn’t pay the most. So I am happy to have other options to provide for me and my family,” but returned this season to play in one of the best professional basketball leagues in the world. However, previously too Williams had been a victim of unfairness.

During the 2021 season, Williams looked to participate for France in the Olympics as well as in the EuroBasket. However, this apparently didn’t go down well with the then Chicago Sky head coach James Wade, who felt she was felt she was not treating the W as a “priority.” The repercussions of this were that the Nevada-born was placed on the full-season suspension list, a decision that cannot be reversed. In fact, although the Sparks did sign her next, the guard was unable to play for the team because of the suspension.

Therefore, after her brilliant Olympics campaign when Reese asked her to join the Sky, she declined pointing out that they didn’t do right with her. Looks like Williams still harbors a resentment. Meanwhile, as for the equal pay debate, the WNBA star Kelsey Plum had made clear what the W stars expect.

Kelsey Plum counts her financial expectations

The equal pay debate has often been decided in favor of the NBA since according to fans, the women’s sport isn’t as popular as the men’s league. Therefore, critiques of the W players’ wishes opine that women’s basketball doesn’t bring that much viewership and hence generates lesser revenue. And therefore, it is apt that the W stars are paid less when compared to the male players.

Talking about the same, Plum pointed out that they didn’t want to earn as much as their male counterparts. Instead, they were looking “to get paid the same percentage of revenue shared. In the NBA, they have percentages of revenue shared for the players — so, jersey sales, obviously their TV contracts… But that’s because their CBA negotiates, where the owners are making certain types of money, [the players] get that as well. In the WNBA, that’s not the case,” Plum enumerated.

According to ‘Hoop Stats’, the WNBA players get a 50-50 share of the incremental revenue. But as per Plum, the CBA should include all other W revenues in it too, so that the players can benefit. “They sell my jersey in Mandalay Bay, I don’t get a dime,” Plum concluded. After her statement, multiple WNBA players like Nneka Ogwumike, WNBPA President, came forward to support her.

And over time this debate has only caught more pace, especially now that the W is trying to match the NBA’s popularity. And maybe the day isn’t far off when Williams will earn to her satisfaction.