The WNBA playoffs will officially kick off on Sunday, and it doesn’t appear that much progress, if any, has been made when it comes to a new collective bargaining agreement.
Though there is still time for the players union and the league to strike a deal before the Oct. 31 deadline, it is rapidly running out.
“We are negotiating with a league and at least seven, and who knows, maybe all 13 teams that seem unwilling to share in the growth that we are driving that … our labor produces,” WNBA president Nneka Ogwumike said during a call with the Democratic Women’s Caucus on Wednesday.
“They know the business is doing well and will continue to do well, and yet they want to have it both ways and claim that sharing league and team revenue is not possible right now. How? How can that really be?”
Ogwumike’s comments came shortly after 85 members of the Democratic Women’s Caucus and House Democratic Caucus signed a letter to the league urging it to “bargain in good faith to reach a fair CBA in a timely manner.”
What is at stake in WNBA CBA negotiations?
The WNBA players opted out of the current CBA last October, one day after the end of last season’s WNBA Finals. That set up an Oct. 31 deadline this fall for a deal to get done.
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The decision came amid a time where the league is drawing record attention, consistently breaking attendance and viewership benchmarks and expanding like never before. The Golden State Valkyries entered the WNBA this season, and both the Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo will join next year. The league is planning to add by 2030 in Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia. The final three cities paid a combined $750 million to join the league. The league also struck a massive new media rights deal that will start bringing in approximately $200 million per season next summer.
Players have been clear about what they want in the new CBA, too. , they are looking for an “equity-based model” for players, increased wages, better practice and game facilities and travel accommodations, expanded retirement benefits and pregnancy and family planning benefits.
Yet throughout the negotiations, players have not been happy with what the WNBA has been offering them. Phoenix Mercury forward a “slap in the face,” and New York Liberty star Sabrina Ionescu insisted that they weren’t just going to settle.
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“We’re not just going to take the minimum [because it’s] more than we’re making now,” she .
The WNBA players union and league officials had a face-to-face meeting ahead of the All-Star Game in July, which . She said then that she was “optimistic” that a deal would get done in time, too.
It’s very possible that the two sides will be able to strike a deal before the deadline. Even if they don’t, with the deadline coming after the end of the WNBA Finals, they will have months before any work stoppage would actually carry over into next season.
But at least so far, there is still a very big gap between the union and the league.
