Jemele Hill cites Brittney Griner’s Russia detainment as a reason WNBA should increase pay

Negotiations between the WNBA and its players’ union are likely to get heated in the coming months as the two sides attempt to hammer out a new collective bargaining agreement.

WNBA players made waves over the weekend by wearing shirts that said “Pay Us What You Owe Us” during the All-Star Game. The league and its players’ union held their first formal negotiations regarding a new CBA over the weekend, and each side left with different characterizations of how things went. The players called it a “missed opportunity,” while WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert expressed optimism and suggested the league and players “want the same things.”

The most significant point of contention during negotiations will center on how much WNBA players ultimately receive in pay. As television ratings continue to skyrocket and the league’s media rights revenue follows a similar trajectory, players feel they should receive a bigger share of the revenue.

For one prominent sports journalist, the issue is pretty black and white. WNBA players simply aren’t getting paid what they’re worth, according to former ESPN host Jemele Hill. How does she know? Well, because many of the league’s top players seek offseason opportunities overseas, often in countries with poor human rights records, where they’re paid significantly more than they’re in the United States.

The whole reason Brittney Griner was in Russia in the first place was because they actually pay women’s basketball players what they deserve overseas @jemelehill pic.twitter.com/A4JJ48vHbg

— Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz (@LeBatardShow) July 21, 2025

“You want to make sure you pay them enough at least so that they’re not going overseas,” Hill explained on The Dan Le Batard Show with Stutgotz on Monday. “What does it say about the salary structure in the WNBA that the whole reason that Brittney Griner was playing in Russia was because in Russia, [a country] that has not so good of a record of human rights, pays their women’s basketball players better than they do here in America. That’s the whole reason why she was there. That’s why Diana Taurasi was there, that’s why many of them go overseas. They go overseas to countries that have terrible human rights violations because they actually could get paid what they’re worth in those countries and not in this country.”

One has to imagine that the fact that WNBA players receive higher salaries to play overseas is a significant point of leverage for the union against the league. After all, the league doesn’t want its stars to risk injury playing for an entity that they don’t control. And they surely don’t want another Brittney Griner situation to unfold.

Given its recent surge in popularity, the WNBA can likely afford to keep its players at home and avoid these risks in the future.