The David Rubenstein Show Sep 17, 2026 24m 12m saved
With Clara Wu Tsai, co-owner of the Brooklyn Nets and the New York Liberty
The WNBA's salary cap rose from $1.4 million to $7 million in a single year under the league's new collective bargaining agreement, with a path to $10 million by the end of its term. Clara Wu Tsai, who co-owns the New York Liberty, said the number matters less as a pay rise than as evidence.
Most team owners describe their business in terms of the season in front of them. Wu Tsai said the job is the opposite of a quarterly one, and that the asset she is managing is an institution her children are expected to inherit.
"I think this agreement is so important because it reflects an incredible confidence in the commercial potential of this business."
Wu Tsai grew up in Lawrence, Kansas, the daughter of Taiwanese immigrants, worked at the New York Times, American Express and Taobao, and bought into the Brooklyn Nets with her husband on the condition that the deal came with a route to majority control and to owning the arena. Five years after taking on the Liberty, the team won a championship. David Rubenstein interviewed her at a basketball center in Brooklyn.
The full interview is covered here so you can skip it. 24 minutes of audio, 12 minutes of reading.
Here are the 14 lessons that matter.
Key Takeaways
The WNBA cap went from $1.4 million to $7 million in one year, with $10 million written into the term
Players no longer have to play overseas in the off-season to make a living, she said
She would not buy in without a path to majority control and to owning the arena
The first fix at the Liberty was moving the team back to Barclays Center from Westchester
Owning the building matters because a team without an arena is a tenant
She has committed $50 million over 10 years to economic mobility in Brooklyn
Her science funding targets the gap in research on female athlete physiology
1. A Center in Brooklyn
The interview was recorded at a basketball center Wu Tsai's organization operates in Brooklyn and makes available to the neighborhood. She gave two reasons for it, and did not pretend the second one was charity.
"I think it's so important what sports can teach you — teamwork, discipline for kids, for their own physical and mental well-being, and also for learning leadership skills, to be able to have a place." — Clara Wu Tsai
"So we have this here and we make it available to everybody in the community. And it's also a way to develop a pipeline of fans, of course." — Clara Wu Tsai
2. Decades, Not Quarters
Rubenstein asked how running a sports franchise compares with ordinary business. Wu Tsai's answer was about the time horizon and about what is being maximized, and she was clear that she never expected to be in this position at all.
"Absolutely not — could never have dreamed it." — Clara Wu Tsai, on growing up in Kansas expecting to own a team
"In a traditional business, you're focused on quarterly earnings. And I think for sports team owners, you're thinking about decades and you're thinking about generations." — Clara Wu Tsai
"And instead of thinking about earnings, you're really thinking about increasing the value of this institution." — Clara Wu Tsai
"I can't think of anything more fun than owning a sports team when your team is winning." — Clara Wu Tsai
3. Why Majority Control
The Nets stake came up for sale in pieces. Wu Tsai said what made it worth doing was not the team but the structure of the opportunity: a defined route to control and to owning Barclays Center. Control was the condition, and the reason was that a minority holder cannot decide anything.
"But the fact that there was a path to majority control and a path to be able to own an arena made the Brooklyn Nets particularly attractive to us." — Clara Wu Tsai
"And I think that for us, when you have majority control, you can make decisions and you can set the direction and set a vision for the company." — Clara Wu Tsai
The first decision that control made possible was buying a WNBA team.
4. Taking On the Liberty
The NBA offered the Liberty, and Wu Tsai said she and her husband were cautious. The franchise had been moved to the Westchester County Center, lost its fan base, and had declining metrics across the board. What changed her mind was making a documentary about the league's first 25 years and its 2021 players.
"I think we were a little wary, because we knew that it had somewhat been orphaned, in a way." — Clara Wu Tsai
"And I realized that the talent was there and the heart was there, the competitive fire was there, but there really wasn't enough visibility." — Clara Wu Tsai
Asked whether she and her husband split the two teams deliberately, she said it happened naturally and then became a real division of labor.
"There was a point when I realized that owning the team meant to me it was more than basketball — it was also about increasing the visibility of women and giving women more opportunity." — Clara Wu Tsai
5. The Turnaround
The championship came within five years. Wu Tsai listed the sequence: relocate, invest, recruit, then build the experience around the game. The first move was geographic and the last was cultural.
"The most important and first move that we made was to move the team from Westchester County Center to Barclays Center." — Clara Wu Tsai
"After that, we started to invest — we invested in player health and performance, we invested in management talent, and we invested in facilities." — Clara Wu Tsai
Recruiting started with signing the top free agent of 2023, Breanna Stewart. In parallel the marketing team built an in-arena experience drawn from the music, dance and art of the borough.
"And since Brooklyn is so artsy, it naturally sort of had a cool factor." — Clara Wu Tsai
6. A $7 Million Cap
The new collective bargaining agreement is the part of the conversation with the hardest numbers in it. Wu Tsai tied the rise directly to what players produce commercially, and said the practical effect is that a WNBA career can now be a full-time job.
"Yes, we just signed a historic collective bargaining agreement — a really large step change in player compensation." — Clara Wu Tsai
"The WNBA salary cap went from $1.4 million to $7 million in one year, with a path to $10 million by the end of the term of the agreement." — Clara Wu Tsai
"And what that means is the WNBA players can now make a career out of playing in the WNBA and they won't have to go overseas to make a living." — Clara Wu Tsai
She was careful not to declare the problem solved, and framed the league as a test case that other women's sports are watching.
"And the story isn't written, right?" — Clara Wu Tsai
7. Winning a Championship
Wu Tsai has had a long business career and said none of it compares. Her father, who died recently, watched the finals on television.
"I think a joy that makes any other business success that I've had pale in comparison." — Clara Wu Tsai
"It is so sweet that you automatically feel like you want to do it again." — Clara Wu Tsai
"My father was alive when we won the championship, and he watched the finals on TV, and I know he saw me hoist that trophy." — Clara Wu Tsai
8. Players and Politics
WNBA players speak publicly on political questions, and Rubenstein asked whether that creates difficulty for an owner whose views may differ. Wu Tsai did not hedge on support and put the emphasis on how disagreement is handled.
"We've been very clear that we support our players and their ability to express themselves." — Clara Wu Tsai
"We want players to be able to express themselves, but we also want to set an environment where we encourage dialogue, conversation, and really respectful conversation if there are differing points of view." — Clara Wu Tsai
On her own role, she described it as hiring well and then getting out of the way.
"So that's my job — to just create an environment where players can be the best basketball players they can be." — Clara Wu Tsai
"In sports, it is true — your roster is always changing. So it actually limits how close you can get to a player." — Clara Wu Tsai
9. Kansas to Taobao
Her father taught econometrics at the University of Kansas; her mother had a master's in mathematics and gave up her career for the family. Wu Tsai studied international relations at Stanford, worked at a San Francisco consulting firm that specialized in industries with too much capacity, went to Harvard Business School, and then to the New York Times and American Express.
"I grew up in Lawrence, Kansas, home of the Kansas Jayhawks." — Clara Wu Tsai
"And I quickly learned, though, that corporate culture wasn't really that interesting to me, and that I was a lot happier when I was building something and creating something new, even within the organization." — Clara Wu Tsai
That took her to Taobao, Alibaba's consumer marketplace, where she could watch a decision show up in the numbers the same day.
"And when I went there, I started the first cross-border sales channel and enlisted Hong Kong sellers to sell to mainland consumers." — Clara Wu Tsai
10. Sports as an Asset Class
Asked whether she would buy more teams, Wu Tsai said yes, selectively, and explained why the category has repriced. Her argument is about scarcity of live, unscripted, shared experience.
"Sports has become a legitimate asset class, and they've become very good investments." — Clara Wu Tsai
"And who knew that live experiences would become so valuable?" — Clara Wu Tsai
"Who knew that something that was unscripted and unpredictable, something that caused people to come together in a shared experience, would be something that was monetizable and also really valued?" — Clara Wu Tsai
She intends the holdings to stay in the family, with a condition attached for her children.
"But what I say to them is, if they want to be a part of the sports organization, they need to learn a skill that's valued in the sports business — whether that's data analytics or media rights or negotiation or deal structuring, they should learn that, because sports is an emotional business — it is for fans, at least." — Clara Wu Tsai
11. The Arena Is the Business
Barclays Center runs hundreds of events a year, which Wu Tsai described as the reason the arena was attractive on its own terms. The operating logic is control: scheduling, hospitality and the premium product all sit with the owner of the building.
"And it generates cash flow, because there are hundreds of events going on a year." — Clara Wu Tsai
"If you don't own an arena and you have a team, then you're a tenant." — Clara Wu Tsai
"And if you own the arena, you can control scheduling, you can oversee hospitality, including developing premium hospitality." — Clara Wu Tsai
She said the combination of team and arena is worth more than either standalone, and that what brings fans back is not the competition itself.
"But what keeps fans coming back, what really creates loyalty, is you need your fans to feel like they're a part of it — that they're a part of the game and a part of the whole experience." — Clara Wu Tsai
12. $50 Million in Brooklyn
Wu Tsai's giving runs across three areas, and the social justice work is deliberately local to the borough that came with the team. The fund is halfway through its term.
"There's three main pillars — I would say science, art and culture, and social justice." — Clara Wu Tsai
"Soon after we bought the team, we committed to a social justice fund — a $50 million, 10-year commitment to economic mobility in Brooklyn." — Clara Wu Tsai
"And we've also refurbished basketball courts in areas with high rates of gun violence." — Clara Wu Tsai
She said the money has gone to hundreds of small businesses and entrepreneurs through grants, loans, technology accelerators and equity investments.
13. Human Performance
The Human Performance Alliance came out of a gap she noticed as an owner: almost everything known about the body is known from studying illness. Her funding goes to the opposite question.
"The Human Performance Alliance is a scientific research initiative focused on understanding performance — how the body moves, adapts, fatigues, and recovers over time." — Clara Wu Tsai
"Most health research is focused on disease, and we study performance — how the body operates when it's at its very best." — Clara Wu Tsai
"Prevention, prediction, and women's health — those are the frontiers of human performance." — Clara Wu Tsai
The three current priorities are preventing injuries before they occur, training and recovery personalized to an individual's biology, and closing the research gap on female athletes, since most sports science has been done on men.
14. What She Would Change
Rubenstein asked what she wants next and what she would have done differently. Wu Tsai named a second championship and a durable culture, and then set a wider goal for the category.
"So I would like to win another championship and set a culture of excellence that will withstand the test of time." — Clara Wu Tsai
"More broadly, for women's sports, I think we are at an inflection point, and I would really like to see women's sports teams become a scaled, sustainable, durable — profitable — business." — Clara Wu Tsai
Her regret was not a decision but an omission.
"So I think being very grateful for when luck comes your way is part of it — working hard and making the most of your opportunities, but knowing that a lot of it was not in your control." — Clara Wu Tsai
Bonus Insights
She was a Kansas basketball fan as a girl and went to school with Danny Manning, and said watching the town come together around the Jayhawks is what shaped her view of what a team is for
Her parents left Taiwan in the 1960s without much English. Asked how she and her husband stayed grounded, she pointed at that, and at her children growing up near their grandparents in San Diego
On the arena she drew a distinction between hardware and software: Barclays Center is a black box that can be configured many ways, and what matters is how it is run
Asked to choose between family, the team and her philanthropy, she declined: "I can't choose one of the three, because they all give me immense joy."
Looking back, she credited curiosity and attention rather than planning: "You have to see things in front of you and think about where you might be able to make your own individual difference in the opportunity set that's presented to you."
Wu Tsai's bottom line is that women's basketball now has to prove it can pay players properly and still make money, and that the new salary cap is the first real test of whether it can.
Products, Companies & Tools Mentioned
New York Liberty (The WNBA franchise she leads; moved from Westchester to Barclays Center and won a championship within five years)
Brooklyn Nets (Bought with a path to majority control, which is what made the deal worth doing)
Barclays Center (Hundreds of events a year; owning it means controlling scheduling and hospitality rather than renting)
WNBA (New collective bargaining agreement takes the salary cap from $1.4 million to $7 million, with $10 million written into the term)
Taobao (Alibaba's consumer marketplace, where she built the first cross-border channel selling from Hong Kong into the mainland)
Human Performance Alliance (Her research initiative on injury prevention, personalized recovery and the data gap on female athletes)
American Express and The New York Times (Her post-business-school employers, and where she decided corporate life did not suit her)
Books & Resources Mentioned
Unfinished Business (The documentary she produced on the WNBA's first 25 years, following the 2021 players in their first season at Barclays Center; making it is what convinced her to buy the Liberty)
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