The History of Housing and Transport in the WNBA: 6 Events That Got Us Here
The ongoing CBA negotiations between the WNBA and the Players’ Association have given us countless things to talk about. While the revenue sharing system conversation has taken a bulk of the spotlight (rightfully so), I would like to bring attention to another critical discussion point that has gained increasing traction over the last few months: housing. In this article, I will attempt to break down the housing issue and pair it with transport; two things that I feel affect all of us in our daily lives.
Imagine you get a new job in a different state. Your first order of business is probably to find living quarters and a way to get to and from work. Ideally you have a car, and that takes care of half of it, but if you don't you might have to figure out the dynamics of public transport, Uber or something else. The commute should hopefully not be too long, and the housing situation should be stable. No one wants to work while feeling like they may lose their home at any moment.
To a great extent, WNBA players’ lives aren't too different from ours. Sure, they are talented individuals who put their skills on display for the whole world to see every night, but a little digging unveils an uncomfortable reality. WNBA players contend with many of the same issues normal Americans do, from job insecurity to commuter fatigue. Hell, most of them work two jobs (playing overseas basketball) just to get ahead. Not to mention dealing with housing insecurity and navigating family and childcare logistics.
Housing in the WNBA
Since the league’s inception, team-provided housing has been a requirement, mainly because salaries were too low for many players to afford market-rate rent in major cities. The way this works is each team is required to either provide housing to its players, or in its stead, provide the players with a housing stipend. These vary from team to team based on the cities. Numbers reported to ESPN have New York having the highest stipend of $2647 and Vegas having the lowest, around $1177. From these numbers, it suffices to say that this is simply normal-scale housing, mostly one-bedroom apartments. Each team has its own way of doing things, some own their own living facilities, and some have deals with property management companies. Any player who opts out of these living quarters is entitled to the stipend, so some players go that route, but those ESPN reports show us that the majority of the players accept the housing provided.
The WNBA has proposed much improved salaries for the players in the upcoming CBA, and would like to take away provisions for team-funded housing. This, the league says, will be a step into further “professionalizing” the league, akin to the NBA and other male professional sports leagues. The league argues that with the higher salaries, players should be more than capable of securing their own housing. The players have provided major pushback to this, adding that even with the improved salaries, most of the players are still under contracts that are not guaranteed. This makes it increasingly hard to find housing, especially in competitive markets. Players would need to somehow secure flexible leases, with the fear of getting stuck in a lease with no job in case they are cut.
Hearing this makes one think that the current housing system is perfect for the WNBA players. However, there is a lot more than meets the eye here. We have had a few instances where the curtain has been peeled back and we have had a look at the ugly reality of the housing system.
In 2020, the world was under lockdown because of the pandemic. When the NBA announced that it would be returning for a shortened season in the Orlando bubble, the WNBA decided to follow suit and return to the IMG Academy in Bradenton, Florida. Excitement for this soon turned into anger on arrival, when the standards at the stay location were found to be extremely low.
Worms, bed bugs, rodent traps. Countless videos of these unsanitary living conditions were shared by the women on social media, sparking an outrage from even unexpected sources. It was unprecedented for athletes to let us into their personal lives to this extent, and the thought of playing a basketball game and then not being able to shower because the shower won't drain drove people mad with rage. Many NBA players spoke up about this, and the media called out the WNBA for subjecting their players to such degrading conditions. The WNBA later vowed to get to the bottom of the issue but at this point the damage had been done.
This was the first instance when fans saw a major disconnect between the league’s “professional” image, and the reality the players had to deal with. It also brought into scrutiny the housing standards provided to the players by the teams. If the league was penny-pinching and giving the players the short end of the stick in this scenario, who knows what the teams were forcing the ladies to put up with. In an attempt to get to the bottom of it and avert the crisis at hand, the WNBA sent out a formal survey and forced immediate upgrades to living conditions.
Gabby Williams Calls Out the Sky
Following her departure from the Chicago Sky, former WNBA All-Star Gabby Williams heavily criticised the organization for its poor planning of housing. She claimed that the practice facility was “terrible” and forty minutes away from their arena. She also claimed that the housing was located in a “remote” area.
The practice facility standards in the WNBA are no secret. It is fairly obvious that the league and its teams have strides to be made in this department. Improvements are being consistently made, with teams basically cutting the ribbon on a new multi million dollar training facility every other day. The Sky famously have the worst training facility, reportedly even worse than the Sun, who are the smallest market in the WNBA. The location of it, however, might be the worst part of it.
Having a facility where you train every day be 40 minutes away from where you actually play is a real problem. Not to mention, the players basically live in the middle of nowhere. Countless players have revealed that this is a huge hindrance to living a normal social life. This raises a major concern: even with housing provided, the location is often inconvenient for the grueling schedule of a performing athlete.
Getting Cut
Diamond DeShields on Instagram about being Waived from Connecticut SunsWNBA teams can only guarantee six players’ contracts on the team. This means the rest of the players are at the risk of losing the rest of their pay should they be cut or waived by their teams. As the league has grown, the spotlight has turned to the roster churn that makes housing vital.
by u/SufficientGrass3903 in wnba
In 2025, a video by Diamond Deshields, who was cut by the Connecticut Sun, made its rounds on social media. In that video, she was struggling to find transport out of Connecticut and seemed completely dejected by the situation. Seven other players were cut in the 2025 season and were forced to find new teams. The timing of this coincided with the CBA discussions, and this became a focal point of the talks. The WNBA had been trying to get rid of team-provided housing, and the players viewed it differently. Advocates argue that without team-provided housing, a player on a 7-day or hardship contract would find it impossible to secure a short-term lease in expensive markets like New York or San Francisco, essentially pricing them out of the league.
This has proven to be a very sensitive issue. Luckily, this is one of the issues that the WNBA seems to be willing to work with the players on. Could the best path forward be to simply allow teams to provide housing and not to mandate it? This would make it more of a competitive advantage, more like the training facilities we mentioned earlier. Another path would be to provide housing for players under specific types of contracts, perhaps hardship contracts or any non guaranteed contracts. This would help in the league’s efforts to make the league more professional, while still allowing for a less hectic transition for non-guaranteed contract players.
Transport in the WNBA
The issue of transport is one that the WNBA has made huge steps forward in over the last few years. It is therefore not as pressing an issue as housing is, but there is some fine print that needs to be discussed. The biggest discussion point when it comes to housing is codifying the charter program. Until recently, teams were not allowed to charter planes for their players, with the league deeming it an unfair advantage.
WNBA players say that they are grateful for the strides made in this department, but only codification will signal true change. This, of course, comes at a price. With the league wanting to base player pay on net revenue, charter charges would have to be taken out first before the players are paid. This cuts deep into the players’ pockets, who end up feeling shortchanged. It is basically like your employer providing you with transport to all different work locations, but then taking travel costs out of your salary. Players argue that they shouldn’t have to be punished for travelling to do their jobs. Additionally, they feel that should they get their proposed 30% of gross revenue, the remaining portion should be sufficient to handle the travel and housing provisions.
Now I have not crunched the numbers, but the fact that this ties back to the biggest discussion point on the table (revenue sharing) makes it a bigger issue than it needs to be. Don’t get me
wrong, I do not think that the charter system is going anywhere. As a matter of fact, we have several instances of situations that have brought us to this point, some of which I will highlight here next, that make me confident that chartering is here to stay. I believe that to truly know where we are headed, we must first know where we came from.
On August 3 2018, the Las Vegas Aces were scheduled to play the Washington Mystics in a game that had significant playoff implications. Unfortunately, a series of mechanical failures and weather delays turned a routine flight into a 25 hour ordeal. The team had to spend the nights in airports and on planes, arriving in D.C only four hours before tipoff.
The players, citing extreme fatigue, opted not to play, expecting the game to be rescheduled. However, because they were in the city at the time of the game and had opted not to take the court, the league ruled it as a forfeit. This was a stunning reality check to all the players. Not only were they at the mercy of airline delays and standard security lines and terminals, but the league had also shown that it would not back them should something like this happen. They were already putting up with limited leg room hence increased fatigue (these are professional basketball players; they are not small people).
The forfeit served as ammunition for the WNBPA in its 2020 CBA negotiations. It had transformed transport from a “convenience” issue into a “health and safety” crisis. This forfeit is seen to this day as the beginning of the end of the commercial era. The league had to take a closer look into what it deemed as an unfair advantage; seeing as it had actually hurt the fairness of the league by forcing a team to forfeit such an important game.
Liberty get fined
During the 2021 season, the NY Liberty got hit with a record fine of $500,000 for chartering flights for their players. This came as a shock to many fans as that felt like a harsh fine for simply trying to improve the quality of life for your players. It was later learnt that this was barely the tip of the iceberg, as the league had threatened the Liberty with far worse consequences should they keep doing the unthinkable. These threats included loss of draft picks, suspension of ownership and ultimately termination of the franchise! The league had made it clear that this was an issue they were not joking around on.
The aftermath of this incident was colossal. It cast a spotlight on how the league limits its wealthier owners from providing what it called “excessive” housing or travel benefits to gain a competitive edge. This caught the Liberty owners, who also own the Brooklyn Nets, by surprise and set a precedent to any other billionaire owners who might even think of doing such a thing. The punishment felt like what we read about in college sports, and not professional leagues.
3. Britney Griner Harassment
Following her detainment and release from a Russian penitentiary, Britney Griner found herself in the middle of a political battle. While many fans were thrilled to have the All-Star back, her return was not without controversy. The league and its players had played a significant role in applying pressure to the government to negotiate her return, and eventually a deal had been struck where she would be handed back in exchange of notorious arms dealer Viktor Bout.
On June 10, 2023, while travelling commercially through the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport with her Phoenix Mercury teammates, Griner was accosted by a right wing YouTube provocateur. He shouted unnerving questions to Griner about the swap deal and her teammates were forced to intervene and huddle in a corner to protect her. Airport security eventually arrived at the scene, but it was too late. Despite Griner having a security detail, the travel system had failed to prevent public access to the team.
The backlash from the WNBPA and the players leaguewide was immediate, branding commercial travel “a threat to health and safety”. Following the threat, the WNBA allowed Griner and the Mercury to fly charter for the remainder of the season. In addition to this, the league began requiring teams to travel with security details. This marked the beginning of the process to make chartering a permanent system for the WNBA.
In May 2024, the WNBA finally announced a full-time charter flight program for all 12 teams, committing over $50m over the next two years. This came after increased pressure by some team owners like the Liberty’s Joe Tsai and the Aces’ Mark Davis. While the league had previously argued that chartering gave teams an unfair advantage, the Griner incident made the risks of commercial travel public and undeniable.
Where do we go from here?
In a new counter-proposal sent just this past Friday night, the league made its first real concession on housing. The WNBA is now proposing to provide one-bedroom apartments for rookies and players on the minimum salary (projected at $225,000 for 2026), but there’s a massive catch: this benefit would only last for the first three years of the CBA. By 2029, the league wants to "professionalize" completely, meaning even the rookies would be on their own. Additionally, the new "developmental" roster spots—a move aimed at helping expansion teams fill their benches—would only be granted studio apartments.
The introduction of two new teams this season has only made these talking points more heated. With the league’s geographical expansion each year, players will be spending more time travelling to different cities, more games will be played and more players will be joining the ranks. We all hope to see codification of the charter system in the new CBA, but the wrinkles have to be ironed out first before that becomes a reality. Whatever is agreed upon is going to set the precedent for years to come, not only for the WNBA, but also for other growing professional women' s sports leagues.
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