The StudBudz Are Just Getting Started

The StudBudz are thinking more about the future. Just a year ago, the former Minnesota Lynx teammates and viral livestreaming sensations competed in a league with a maximum salary of $249,244. Now, thanks to the WNBA’s latest collective bargaining agreement, players are signing multi-million dollar contracts for the first time in its 30-year-history.

“It changed my life. My mama, she’s able to retire now,” Courtney Williams, who reportedly signed a two-year, $2.4 million max contract with the Lynx this April, tells me. “It just feels like whatever I want or whatever they want, we could just get now.”

“I feel like now, with the money that I am getting, it’s helping me with my goals in the future,” Natisha Hiedeman, who signed with the Seattle Storm in April on a two-year, $1.5 million contract, adds. “In the past, they maybe seemed far-fetched but now it’s like, no, I could do that.”..........

If you’re a newer fan to the WNBA, you might think it’s long been like this — a place where two gay, masc-of-center women can make millions playing ball, and be as outrageous as they are out. But in a league with a more heteronormative past than its current reputation might suggest, Williams and Hiedeman represent a new era of inclusion and authenticity — one they have helped build, one livestream at a time.



https://www.them.us/story/studbudz-courtney-williams-natisha-hiedeman