--- description: Find out why Claudia Goldin was selected for TIME‘s 2026 list of the most influential people in sports. title: TIME100 Most Influential People in Sports 2026: Claudia Goldin image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltff578192417effea/6a209fdc70c5a9777427c0f4/T100SPORTS-2026-Web-Claudia-Goldin.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9%2Coffset-x0.00%2Coffset-y53.86 --- Jun 09, 2026 # Claudia Goldin by [Sean Gregory](/author/sean-gregory/) ## Sean Gregory Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close Senior Correspondent  Carlin Stiehl—Getty Images [Claudia Goldin](https://time.com/collections/women-of-the-year/6691521/claudia-goldin-2/ "undefined"), a Harvard economist who won a Nobel prize in 2023 for her work studying outcomes in women’s labor markets, took on a key advisory role for the [WNBA players’ union ](https://time.com/collection/time100-sports/2026/nneka-ogwumike/ "undefined")(WNBPA) in recent collective-bargaining negotiations. The result: players received a nearly 400% raise in the deal that was ratified in March, as the average player salary jumped from $118,000 to more than $580,000\. Goldin kept the players focused on revenue-sharing. With careers so short in the league, Goldin advised them to prioritize salaries, because increased wages would provide more long-term value than ancillary benefits. And considering that the league had signed an 11-year media-rights deal worth $2.2 billion in 2024, she insisted that the players would need a hearty slice of the growing pie. “Each time we were just fighting and resisting and so upset with the league’s response or lack of response, and she’d say, ‘It’s just math,’” union chief Teri Jackson told the _Wall Street Journal_. Goldin, it turns out, made the correct calculation. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collection/time100-sports/2026/claudia-goldin/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collection/time100-sports/2026/claudia-goldin/"},"headline":"Claudia Goldin","datePublished":"2026-06-09T12:00:51.571Z","dateModified":"2026-06-09T12:00:51.775Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collection/time100-sports/2026/claudia-goldin/","keywords":["list","franchise"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltff578192417effea/6a209fdc70c5a9777427c0f4/T100SPORTS-2026-Web-Claudia-Goldin.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675%2Coffset-x0.00%2Coffset-y53.86&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Sean Gregory","jobTitle":"Senior Correspondent","url":"https://time.com/author/sean-gregory/"}],"creator":"Sean Gregory","articleSection":"Sports","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltff578192417effea/6a209fdc70c5a9777427c0f4/T100SPORTS-2026-Web-Claudia-Goldin.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675%2Coffset-x0.00%2Coffset-y53.86&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/sports/","name":"Sports"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collection/time100-sports/2026/claudia-goldin/","name":"Claudia Goldin"}}]}] ```