WNBA CBA extension: The players’ condition to continue negotiating revealed originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
The WNBA and the Women’s National Basketball Players Association on Thursday agreed to extend the current collective bargaining agreement through Nov. 30 in order to keep negotiating over a new CBA that will change the landscape of women’s basketball.
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The agreement over an extension indicates that a good-faith effort is being made to negotiate over the finer points of what a revenue-sharing agreement may look like in a new CBA, which arrives at the most crucial time in the WNBA’s 29-year history.
The players continue to push for structural changes that would tie the WNBA salary cap to league income; while the league too wants to see players take home higher salaries, team owners are yet to commit to such a model. Instead, owners are proposing a fixed salary cap and the option for players to partake in future WNBA revenue — though the league is fetching $250 million expansion fees for incoming franchises right now, and a new 11-year, $2.2 billion media rights deal begins next year.
WNBPA can end the extension at any time
Despite the impasse, neither the WNBA nor the WNBPA views the gap as insurmountable, hence the 30-day extension of a CBA that the players opted out from last October.
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However, the WNBPA’s statement made clear that its Executive Committee — led by superstar players Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart — can break off negotiations and end the extension with two days’ notice if talks go south.
In all likelihood, this would lead to a work stoppage that would imperil the league’s calendar, which still needs to book an expansion draft for the Portland Fire and the Toronto Tempo.
“The WNBPA Executive Committee agreed to the league’s proposed 30-day extension of the current CBA, with the condition that the players may terminate the extension at any time with 48 hours’ notice,” the statement said. “While we believed negotiations would be further along, the players are more focused, united, and determined than ever to reach an agreement that reflects their value and undeniable impact on the league.”
