Changing the Game: Deb Willig on the WNBPA's Historic Labor Agreement

Hello, and welcome back to the Null Podcast! Conversations to help you thrive in the legal profession. On this week's episode of the Null Podcast, we're joined by Null member and returning host, Lisa Cohn, along with Deb Willig, partner at Willig Williams and Davidson, an outside council for the Women's National Basketball Players Association, during its historic collective bargaining negotiations with the WNBA. Deb takes us behind the scenes of the groundbreaking agreement, sharing insights into the effort to address the longstanding undervaluation of women athletes, reflects on the growing visibility and impact of the WNBA, and discusses what this landmark achievement could mean for the future of women's sports and beyond. Keep listening for an inspiring conversation about advocacy, strategy, and the power of negotiation to drive meaningful change. As always, the views shared today are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect those of Null or its affiliates and shouldn't be considered legal advice. Now, let's dive in. The National Association of Women Lawyers known as Null. When we think of professional team athletes, we think about tens of millions and salaries, hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue sharing, luxury housing, and private planes. In the NBA, solid starters make a minimum of 800,000 plus and top earners earn tens to hundreds of millions. Players get 50% revenue share. Not so in the WNBA. Last year, the median WNBA salary was about $120,000 with the minimum salary of $64,000. Caitlin Clark made under $80,000 in salary her first two years in the league, despite being a catalyst for millions of viewers and new corporate sponsors to the WNBA as a whole. Lisa Leslie, a now retired WNBA superstar during her prime, made the superstar Max Salary, which at its highest, was 91,000 per season. The highest salary paid to a WNBA player in 2025 was a little over 250,000. And in 2025, each team had a total salary cap of a little over 1.5 million. The player share of revenue was in effect about 12% that was received only after certain thresholds were reached. The dichotomy between the two is stunning, especially since the WNBA has had explosive audience growth in attendance on TV and in social media and explosive growth in revenue streams. But that dichotomy has dramatically improved thanks to a historic new collective bargaining agreement between the WNBA players association and the WNBA. This new agreement has been described as having the largest salary increase from one collective bargaining agreement to the next in the history of US sports. Join me today to discuss that collective bargaining agreement, the wins, the strategy, and a look behind the scenes. We are so fortunate to have a legal trailblazer with us Deb Willig, who along with her partner Jessica Cajiano, were outside counsel to the WNBA Players Association and part of the team negotiating this agreement. Deb Willig is the managing partner of Willig, Williams and Davidson based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Ms. Willig is a lifelong champion of workers representing both public and private sector unions, public health, library and recreation workers, firefighters, musicians, and of course professional athletes. Ms. Willig helps to cure the first ever collective bargaining agreement for the National Women's Soccer League Players Association, which helped set the tone in demanding better treatment for women athletes. She has won too many awards and honors for me to name all of them, so I will just share a few. Lifetime Achievement Award from the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Sandra Day O'Connor Award from the Philadelphia Bar Association, the Margaret Brent Award from the American Bar Association. She was selected to Pennsylvania Super Lawyers from 2004 to the present, as well as included in the best lawyers in America. And she was the first female chancellor of the Philadelphia Bar Association in 1992. So we are going to talk about this historic seven-year collective bargaining agreement between the WNBA and the WNBA Players Association. Deb, let's start by sharing with us the biggest wins in this agreement. Well, first of all, thank you, Lisa, and thank you to all for inviting me to be here today. It's truly a pleasure and it's particular pleasure to speak about this historic agreement. There were a lot of wins and frankly from my point of view as a negotiator for five decades, no givebacks. First and foremost, which was the top of the list for the Players Association was true revenue sharing. From the day we started negotiations in December of 2024 till the day we ended on March 18th of 2026, we wanted true gross revenue share. There were those who said you'll never get revenue share, you'll never get gross revenue share, you'll never get it at 20%. I mean, we faced a lot of hurdles and we were very, very successful. The salary cap for 2026 is $7 million and we expected to grow over the life of the contract to at least $11 million. It's a big deal. That's phenomenal. Yeah, I mean, to go from a salary cap of $7 million from a little over 1.5 is hugely and the minimum salary also now is about 270,000 I think I read. That is correct, which as you said in the introduction is a major step forward. People in the league at the minimum salary started at about $78,000 in 2025. People at the max were at about a quarter of a million. That is so dramatically increased. People at the minimum salary now will make more than the people at the maximum salary in 2025, which is it's just huge. I mean, a lot of the superstars because people would say, well, do you expect to make what Michael Jordan or Steve Steph Curry or you name it and players would say no. Right now, we don't expect equal salaries, but we expect the same program and revenue share, the same approach and the same program. But there were a lot of other wins here too. I mean, our goals when we started were not just revenue share and salaries, but minimum standards. What does a training facility look like? How is it staffed? We face the same thing in soccer. It's remarkable to me when you have elite athletes, the best in the world. People who are potentially and in fact, you know, Olympic gold medalists having to train in facilities that aren't private, not having enough medical staff, training staff, massage staff, nutrition staff. It was just, you know, it's dumbfounded. We also wanted to improve the retirement benefits, which we did dramatically. Yes, there was a 401k plant in place. We increased that by about 140% in the league's contribution. And we also rewarded the players who had founded the league and made it as successful as it was. We created a one-time recognition for the WNBA veterans and retired players based on years of service. For example, people with 12 or plus years of service will either get or got a one-time hundred thousand dollar check. Which is such, I don't know. It's so heartwarming, I think, for the current players to sort of give up something so that those who built the league blood sweat and tears at very low salaries are getting some of this reward as well. I think it's just really amazing. It is. And collective bargaining negotiations don't always go this way. We had literally dozens of player leadership calls and all player calls. And the synergy between the veterans and the rookies or the people, you know, only a couple years in the league. The people who were youngsters said we want to reward the people who built this league that we can play and enjoy it. And the retired player said we need to make sure that going forward this league is sustainable. The players make a decent salary. They get a piece of the pie. So everybody was, you know, of one thought. You know, it's interesting because that did not come out so much in the press because I read a lot of articles for this and I wish I hope that's something that comes out more over the course of the next year. And security is a big issue for these players too from what I understand. Oh, absolutely. I mean, you know, you have high profile, very visible women with a lot of press coverage. That was one of the reasons that, you know, there was this big fight about charter flights. And, you know, the league, the league's mantra during all of the negotiations was we spent so many millions of dollars on charter flights. That should be a given. I don't know when the NBA got charter flights, but like it was decades, it was decades ago. I'm part of the reason for that of security. But in the collective bargaining agreement, we also got that they have to provide security in and around the training facilities and the playing facilities. That's, I think, critically important for everyone state of mind, even. It's important for mental health. And you would actually know a little bit about playing conditions because you played in college. I did, although I was telling somebody yesterday, I played in high school and college. I was the co-captum of my high school team. This was a solar system ago. I mean, you know, when I played basketball, not only were the playing conditions different. My child just got their master's degree in education from University of Pennsylvania, and they graduated at the Pallestro, which is a historic basketball arena in the city of Philadelphia. We never played in the Pallestro. We paid in a gym like up the street or down the street. But we also was a situat where there were six women on the team. Only two of them could go the full court. There were guards, forwards, and rovers, and the rovers were the only ones. And you had a dribble three times, and after that you had a pass. It's a completely different game. A completely different game. So I want to just take a step back for listeners who don't know that much about the WNBA itself. And I just want to mention that the WNBA is a separate league from the NBA, but it was created by the NBA. It does operate independently with partial NBA ownership and NBA ongoing support. The WNBA was officially approved by the NBA Board of Governors in 1996 with the slogan "We got next" to emphasize women's rightful place in professional basketball and play began in June 1997. I believe that the league initially was fully owned by the NBA. And now I believe the NBA owners have about 42% of the WNBA teams. The NBA itself owns another 42%. And then there's the remaining 16% is other investors. So the NBA is still a part of the WNBA. So moving back to the agreement now and the negotiation itself. It was a 15-month marathon negotiation. I want to hear a little bit more about how you are able to achieve this immense leap from one agreement to the next. And I thought it would be great if you could put our listeners in the room with you at the start of the negotiations. Who was in the room with you during these negotiations? Who was in the room changed, depending on what players were available. For example, the WNBA is staffed by a remarkable group of individuals. The executive director, Terry Carmichael Jackson, has been there, I think Terry's now in her 11th year, has been through several collective bargaining agreements. She as trained as a lawyer was counsel to the NCAA for part of her career. She knows the ins and outs of basketball, as a matter of fact, her son is a professional basketball player in the NBA. Another staff member is Michael Goldschall, who went to law school to work at the WNBA, started out as an intern and as a longtime staff member and an expert in revenue sharing models and proposals. Aaron Drake, who is, I think, senior vice, I'm going to get their titles wrong, but their vice president of player affairs, brilliant young lawyer, responsible in part for drafting the proposals, for example, on retirement, and very much a part of what we secured in retirement. And finally, Jane Appell Maranelli, a former player and also involved in player affairs. That was the core negotiating team that was at every session, including my partner, Jess Kajiana, who was at most of them with me. The WNBA had created an advisory council, which included a CPA who had extensive experience in the sports industry and helping other players associations who had worked on NBA matters who had worked for the National Women's Soccer League Players Association and the NFL PA. Another individual who had, like, 25 years experience in the industry of sports, so how the business runs, how the media deals are done, how revenue share is calculated, and finally an economist from Harvard University. We spent the first probably six months, the advisory team and the staff drafting the proposals until we got the first day of negotiations, which I think was December 10th of 24th. It's a hard to remember, but it was in mid-December and in another year. And we started out with a listening session. And I think at the listening session, we probably had six or eight players who included Neca Guamake, the president of the Union, Brianna Stewart, Kelsey Plum, and others throughout the negotiations. There were sometimes players on a Zoom call. These members of the team were on a Zoom call. They absolutely couldn't be in New York. The sessions took place until the last 10 days, either at the WNBPA offices or at the league offices. And I don't think I've counted the number of sessions, but there were dozens. It was a slow start. And I remember saying to our clients, "I've never been a negotiation where you meet once I'm up." I mean, that doesn't make any sense. And I will say the strategy was number one, Revenue Share Salary Cap. And we spent six or seven months just talking about that. We wanted Rose Revenue Share, and the league said, "No way, no how. We will do net revenue share because you have to take into account all of our expenses." And we would say, "Well, tell us what your expenses are." Well, we can't really tell you exactly what our expenses are. And notwithstanding the fact that we had many, many hours of discussion about financial statements and what was included and what was not included, because of the experts on the advisory committee who had been in the sports business and because of the staff itself, which I said was extraordinary, we knew where to pick that apart. And I think that's one of the reasons we ended up with Rose Revenue Share. Which is really important. And that applies to other aspects of law too, whenever you're doing a calculation, and there are costs that they want to be deducted. It's so critically important to very carefully define everything. So I think that was an amazing achievement under the circumstances, because the next thing I want to ask you is, what did it feel like in the room and what was the atmosphere, which you've talked about before? It changed, I think for the most part, it was cordial, people are respectful to each other for the most part. But I think from my point of view, and I've said this publicly before, and it was true in soccer as well, the owners and the league substantially underestimated the players. They underestimated their intelligence and they underestimated their resolve. And underestimating their intelligence, I remember at one point, the lead negotiator for the lead was explaining something, and after he was finished, I said, you know, that's the fifth time you've told us the same thing, and we understood it the first time you said it. And I don't believe that this fellow was used to that kind of pushback, and it was a little testy after that, but that was early, I think, 2026. And they kept repeating the same mantra. We need a league that's sustainable. We need a league where the owners are profitable on day one, which is absurd, because there are NBA teams that are not profitable as we're doing this podcast. So I'm not sure whose goal it was to do that, whether it was the owners or the league, but I kept on thinking SMH in my head, like I don't why are they repeating the exact same thing. We have rebutted it, we have responded to it, we have told them why it wouldn't work, and they didn't seem to be listening. I'm sure I know I use the word tone deaf on many occasions. Yeah, I just have to talk about one of my favorite quotes that I read about in an ESPN article that discussed in depth the negotiations, and it was a quote from Alicia Clark, a player, and also a union vice president. This is what she said about you. She said for you, Deb Willick, to come in and just be like, I'm not scared. What you guys are doing is undervaluing these women, and you know it. And I'm going to make sure that you know it. And then Alicia Clark added that it gave us a boost of confidence. So your role went beyond just legal knowledge too. I mean, I just thought that was fantastic. And the other quote that I also really loved also came from Alicia Clark, and it was at a point where negotiations had been ongoing for quite a while, and it felt at least in this article. It felt like the league was still underestimating and thinking that the women would cave. And she said, do they really think they're going to outlast an endurance athlete? This is what we do. And I just, I loved that quote so much. So Alicia was one of the players who was there at the very end. The last nine or 10 days, literally 20 hours a day, getting four to five hours sleep, you know, depending on the day. I think my role changed. I'm not usually your person, but this was a new client. As I stated with a very experienced, sophisticated leadership and staff and the negotiations were for the most part led by Terry Jackson. And I would like to pass Terry a note or lean over and say, is it okay if I say something? And she said, that's why we hired you, Deb. You don't have to ask me whether you can say something. And, you know, in July of 2025 at the All Star game, there was an in-person negotiating session. 40 players were at that meeting. That in itself was a great deal. was unprecedented. And at one point, I'm not sure if it was the lead negotiator or the commissioner who said, well, do you want revenue share or salary? And I just looked at them and I went, both. And you would have thought I was introducing a new concept. It was extraordinary. I think the league underestimated the complete unity of this player association union. It took, I guess, the end of November of 2025. We had a strike vote. I don't remember the exact percentages, but I think it was like a 93% participation and a 98%. Yes, I think that shocked the owners. I think they thought, you know, a different player-- and this is true, I think it all sports. Different players may have a relationship with their respective team owner. And they chat. And I think some of the owners mistakenly thought, well, they could persuade them of their point of view that those teams were actually losing money. And they needed to make money. And they didn't have enough financial wear with all to provide the players-- respond to the players' demands. And the players just kept pushing back saying, yes, actually, you do. We have studied your financial reports. We know what the numbers say. We are continuing to negotiate. And if there's no 2020-66, and it will be on you, the league, not on us. Was there a time when you thought this really may not work out? Or did you always think there will be a way we just have to persevere? I actually always thought there would be a deal. And at some points, there was this period of time where we presented them. I think it was the first week of December of '25. We presented them with another comprehensive proposal. And we got no answer for six weeks. And I think some of the players got a little bit nervous. And as in any union negotiation, if you are facing a strike, you have to start thinking, how am I paying my rent or mortgage? How am I handling my car payment or buying food? And I kept saying to them, they're scared too. Just remember, the league is very nervous as well. And I think they put on a January 10th deadline that came and went. And then the league came up with this ridiculous letter. If you don't, we don't have an agreement by March X, then the schedule's going to have to change. And I think they were trying to sow the seeds of discontent or a lack of unity among the players. And we would have these player leadership or all player calls, where I was consistently saying, they desperately want a season because the peak of the media deal, the peak of the public interest, the peak of the ticket sales. It's not just benefiting you, it's benefiting them. And they're not going to want a strike. So I mean, I always thought we'd get to a deal. What would be in the deals? A different question. But-- It's also amazing to me that this was all happening when USA Today reported that the WNBA generated at least 200 million in revenue in 2025 because of an 11 year 2.2 billion media rights deal with ESPN NBC Universal and Amazon. And then the same article said, if you add in tickets and sponsors that have, according to this article, and I quote, "flopped to the league," some estimates say that the WNBA generated about 300 million last year. Then that 11 year media deal now is worth 3.1 billion. So even more, because of the addition of USA Sports and renewed deals with scripts and Paramount. And there's also revenue sharing for the WNBA in those deals that could push the numbers up to 281 million annually with the league receiving some advertising and sponsorship revenue under certain conditions. So it's kind of remarkable that this is all happening within that financial aura. So did you feel like the timing was good for you? Oh, the timing couldn't have been better. And I think the union recognized that the players, the player leadership recognized that, which I think was one of the reasons that they were able to stay as strong and united as they did, and achieved this historic agreement. I mean, yes, obviously, and this is true in every sport. People win the World Series more than one time. Yeah, they're making more money than the people at the bottom. But everybody is joining in this. When you get the media deal, I mean, all teams are participating in that. The league is making money off of that. And as I said, the people on the advisory committee were continuously looking at what they were doing. And actually, the fellow who had been in the business of sports, the media part of sports kept on saying, they're not telling you the truth about the media deal. The media deal is worth far more than what they are saying. Because he used to work-- I think he worked for ESPN, for example, or NBC Sports. I mean, he knew the real backroom numbers of this. And we were able, with his expertise, to rebut a lot of what the league was saying. Given the NBA ownership, was there a hidden hand of the commissioner, Adam Silver, to consider in these negotiations, or was he more behind the scenes? It's a very good question. The NBA owns 42% of the WNBA. The lead negotiator and several of the other people at the table actually work for the NBA, not the WNBA. So I think there was a reporting back of what was going on, whether there was a hidden hand, I don't know. At the very end, I got a call from the outside council to the league saying, we want to start-- I think it was March 9th or 10th-- and Wheat New York until we can get a deal. And Adam Silver's going to be there. And I check with my clients. Our response was, we can't start the 9th or the 10th, and we don't need Adam Silver. He never came. Message received. Right. Do you think the league's major priorities were salary and revenue share? I think the league made the same tactical error as the NWSL did in the first soccer negotiations, early on in the negotiations. Probably in their first proposal, I think it was in June of '25, they proposed what looked at the time where dramatic salary increases, but they thought they could buy everything else by giving them dollars. I think the league understood that the revenue share model had a change, but there was no way until probably February of 2026 that they heard the mantra, "Gross, revenue, share, or no deal." I think that finally set in. But I need to point out, and this was a very big deal. In their first proposal in June of '25, they also proposed eliminating housing. Gee, that sounds familiar. We fought the same fight in soccer. And I think they underestimated what a lead balloon that was, frankly. I mean, how that affected-- let's talk about what housing means. There are a number of pieces to this. Number one, people don't necessarily live in the market for the team for which they play. So you're looking at partial term housing. Number two, there are no guaranteed or very few guaranteed contracts. So you could be waived or trained it. Number three, people come from other countries to play in the WNBA. They can't afford. Rookie players, making $78,000 or even $250,000, can't afford rent or mortgage under those circumstances. I was stunned by this no more housing effective immediately. The union anticipated that the lead would try to eliminate housing over a term of an agreement. But this was a shocker, and it was, frankly, a huge strategic error on their part. But it took-- and I won't forget this day-- it was February 2nd of 2026 that Brianna Turner, a veteran player, sat there and explained. And there were three or four owners in the room or on Zoom at that point. The issues with housing and that broke the log jam. I mean, we didn't obviously took another six weeks to get to a deal. But it broke the log jam for their position of eliminating housing day one. So that was clearly a pivotal moment, where there are other or another pivotal moment that you think changed the outcome. Well, let me give you an example of one that I thought about when I read it, after the union, at some point in the negotiations, had offered less than 15% revenue share. And the union had already dropped its request from the initial 30 to 27.5%. The union did a player survey. And the player survey resoundingly rejected that 15% revenue share. When that survey came back so decidedly rejecting that offer, to me, I would feel like, OK, now I can continue, or I know I can continue, because the players are all behind the fact that we cannot accept this deal as is. So was that also a pivotal moment for you? Or-- I don't think I necessarily viewed it as a pivotal moment because we had had many dozens, perhaps, Zoom calls with player leadership, the officers, and also the player representatives. And each team has a player representative. So there could have been 15, 18, 20 people on the call. And the players were unified that 15% was not going to be sufficient, even if they housing back on the table that 15%. I mean the goal, we started out of 40.192. I mean, I didn't necessarily think that was achievable, but we knew the number had to start with 20. So there was never any question in my mind. I think maybe a turning point had to do with how the negotiations were happening just from a process standpoint. I think sometime in 2025, I had asked my counterpart, the outside council to the league about considering having a mediator. It is very typical and sports and in other union negotiations to have either federal or state mediators attend. Unfortunately, at that point in time, Doge had basically eliminated the federal mediation and conciliation service. And when I called a couple of experienced mediators, I knew they would say, I'll do it, but I have to get paid because I'm no longer employed. And the league was not interested. So as the negotiations moved forward and certainly critically in the end of February and March, the two outside council for the respective parties ended up going back and forth with the proposals and doing what normally immediate with you. Well, if I do this, will you do that or can you do that? And I think this coincided with the leagues, in my opinion, was this artificial deadline is if we don't get a deal, but I think March 10th, then we're going to have to change the schedule or we're going to have to cancel training camp. I think that was a pivotal moment. Yeah. Those March negotiations, which were much more condensed and continual than what you had previously described, just looked so intense. There were some great pictures in the press and the media with you all showing you were sleeping on the floor and everything else. I mean, that must have that final moment. What was that like? It was pretty extraordinary. I mean, as I said, this was a negotiation that started with meeting once a month. I mean, I guess in the summer of 25, we started meeting maybe twice a month. We would submit literally dozens of dates to the league and say we are available in these dates and they would never get back to us. And I think once the league started getting nervous about the 2020-26 season, that's when we met more frequently. And at that point in time, I think I said to my client, we need to meet in a neutral space. This is crazy. So we started meeting at a midtown hotel and there were basically there was one big negotiating room and two caucus rooms and we would go, we started the first day. I think at like nine o'clock or nine thirty in the morning. And then I think we went till three or four. And we'd end up going back to the hotel and that starting time moved back a little bit because everybody wanted to get a little bit more sleep. I mean, this was the ninth or the tenth. I don't remember that. I should know that was the Monday. I told my partner I'm going to New York. I should be back on Thursday and Friday and I never came back the following Wednesday. I mean, it was like crazy and you're kind of running on stumes. I mean, I laughed to myself because these are elite athletes who were training every morning. There was a facility for them to go and do their normal training because they were going to ultimately start playing basketball. And I'm twice their age and they're sleeping on the couches. So at some points that Midnight or one o'clock, some of the players might go back to the hotel or sleep, you know, on the sofa or the floor. And I'd be up trying to figure out where the next move was. It was very, very intense. And I think the league finally got the message that it had to be gross revenue share. We had to have salaries where the Max and Super Max exceeded a million dollars guaranteed. Not under the league's initial proposals. It was like, you could make 750. And if we make this much money, you could make as much as this. We said, no, that's that's not going to work. We are not accepting that. We want gross revenue share with a salary cap tied to this. So these players absolutely are guaranteed. I mean, I forget what you said was the average salary and 25 the average salary in 2026 is $583,000. And it is projected to be over a million by 2032. Yeah. And last year it was 120,000, the median. And I also just want to point out the final agreement had unanimous approval by the players. I mean, that's incredible. Yes. I have been doing this for over 50 years. And I have never had a unanimous approval. But it deserved it. I mean, we got the revenue share model that we wanted. It starts at 20%. The real money will grow by leaps and bounds over the period of this collective bargaining agreement because there'll be new media deals. There's renewed interest now, you know, part of the issue obviously is ticket sales. Now some of the teams are scheduling the games in bigger arenas. You know, when a game was scheduled in Philadelphia, they had 20,000 people. I mean, instead of, you know, 7 or 11 that some of these arenas do. We kept housing for 26, 27 or 28 and in 29 and 30, anybody who makes less than $500,000 still gets team provided housing. We have new standards. We have new staff and we have, you know, retirement, improved retirement for active players and a retirement award for the legends who built and all the veterans who built the league. So it's, it's a BSD. So after all of this, I read that one of the younger players told you that this agreement was quote, life changing. Can you talk about what that felt like? I sure can. I have been two dozens, if not hundreds of ratification meetings and unfortunately more than I can count where we've achieved a terrific result for the client and some of the members just go, well, why didn't you get that? And I'm going to vote no. We had several player calls because people are all over the world in different time zones. We had I think 130 or 150 people on the various calls and at the end of, I think the last call, one of the younger players in the league wrote in the chat, thank you also much, this is life changing and that, I mean, that really was heartfelt. It just really made it sink in to the historic achievement that was the outcome of these negotiations. And that you changed their lives, not just you, I'm the whole team, the whole team, absolutely. And I think has a bigger impact than just for the WNBA as well. This, I believe, will have an impact throughout women's sports without question. Yeah. So for someone who is now interested or is interested in this area of law, what advice would you give to them? Well, you know, it's a really interesting question. It wasn't until 2020. Well, our firm has been special counsel of the NFL PA for probably 15 years, but it wasn't until 2020 that when we became counsel to the NWS LPA and I think that generated the interest by the WNBA to hire us. Did we get involved, so involved in the negotiations and the day-to-day operations? I mean, I think honest answer to that is I think you have to be a labor lawyer first. I think you have to be a labor lawyer in for a period of time and get the experience in negotiations and like when an employer does something that could be an unfair labor practice charge. What are the implications of a strike? When does cober kick in, you know, health benefit issues if you go on strike? I think you have to learn the fundamentals and have a substantial amount of negotiating experience before you become a sports lawyer. And on that note, Deb Willig, thank you so much for this wonderful discussion. To paraphrase a line from the dirty dancing movie, don't let anybody put you in a corner. You, Deb Willig, epitomize what you can achieve when you do your homework, know your value and don't let anyone stop you when they say you shouldn't or you can't do something. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Thank you for joining us on this episode of The Null Podcast. And thank you to the Null sustaining sponsors for making this podcast ad free. Want to join us in a person? Null is hosting its annual meeting from Wednesday, July 22nd through Thursday, July 23rd at the Hilton Chicago. For more information, please visit us at null.org. That's n-a-w-l.org. Thanks for listening.