Yahoo Sports Daily hosts Caroline Fenton and Jason Fitz are joined by ESPN basketball analyst Monica McNutt to discuss the WNBA CBA negotiations and whether the league is headed towards a lockout. Watch the full episode of Yahoo Sports Daily on YouTube or YahooSports.TV.
Advertisement
Video Transcript
I know that no one wants to go to a lockout and you’ve got.
You gotta miss training camp, start missing training camp time, which would be in May, the end of April, so you got some time to figure it out.
But These sides are really far apart.
And one of the things that I’m hearing as I’m talking with players, former players, just kind of being around, wanting to see where this is going, housing has come up as a sticking point, um, because under the current system, Most teams provide housing for their players, uh, and I think the question is fair that if these salaries go up.
Is housing still a part of the deal?
Advertisement
So that has emerged as one of the sticking points that I was not at the forefront in my mind.
Um, I was thinking more about insurance, prioritization, veteran minimums, the things that we’ve heard, but this is intricate stuff and I’ve also been asked, guys, you know, should Adam Silver get involved?
Or does it look like the W can’t handle itself?
This is a historic collective bargaining agreement.
It is a historic negotiation.
When you talk to women from other leagues that play in different sports, they will tell you that the WNBA sets the table for women’s sports at large.
Um, the NWSL, the PHL, like the whatever, name the league, it’s looking at how the WNBA handles its business.
Advertisement
And so I’m like, Because of the magnitude and the importance of this negotiation, bring in whoever you got to bring in to make sure that this thing gets done well, so that we can continue to move forward at large in women’s sports.
But this is tenuous, this is sticky, and Kathy Engelbert obviously represents not just the players, in fact, maybe percentage wise more so leans toward the owners.
So I understand why this is going to take time.
Do you believe that this will result in a lockout?
My initial reaction, uh, as we prepared for the finals was, oh, we headed straight toward a lockout.
Now, I have sat back a little bit.
Advertisement
We’ve got a lot of time.
I’m not sure where the players are on the revenue share.
I think that’s the probably the most popular conversation and it’s not just landing on a percentage or close to the percentage that they desire, that then obviously trickles into the housing conversation and so much more.
And so I’m unclear on how much the players are willing to.
Budget or budget, excuse me, in that regard, and that makes me nervous about a lockout.
