More than 70 elected officials from around the U.S., including New York City Democrat mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, sent a letter to WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert and NBA commissioner Adam Silver on Friday, urging the league “to bargain in good faith to reach a fair (Collective Bargaining Agreement) in a timely manner” before the Oct. 31 deadline.
The letter from legislators, who govern in proximity to seven WNBA markets and include a mix of mayors, council members and assembly members like Mamdani, comes at a critical moment in the discussions between the league and the Women’s National Basketball Players Association. The two sides remain divided on key issues as the current CBA nears its expiration date and tensions are high, evidenced most recently by WNBPA executive director Terri Jackson issuing a rebuke of a comment by Silver.
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“We all want to be able to take in a full season, but we know that they deserve to get paid what they deserve to earn,” said New York City council member Tiffany Cabán, who led the organizing effort and has been a New York Liberty fan since the franchise’s inception in 1997. “It mirrors the fights that everyday working-class women are having every day when they’re saying to their bosses: ‘We need childcare. We need good health benefits. We need an environment that allows us to be present with our loved ones and values the labor that allows you all to make as much money as you do.’”
The legislators write in the letter, “This new CBA deal is an opportunity to set the record straight that women are valuable workers who deserve to be paid accordingly and treated fairly.”
The letter reflects the continued growing spotlight on the WNBA, especially as a potential labor impasse approaches and the wedge issues of revenue sharing and salary remaining unresolved. The league said, via a spokesperson, that it has made proposals with significant increases in salary “that will benefit all.”
Interest in the WNBA CBA negotiations has been bubbling the last four months.
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Google search data shows that queries for “WNBA CBA” peaked in mid-July, when at the All-Star Game in Indianapolis, players wore T-shirts in warmups with “Pay Us What You Owe Us” printed on them. While interest subsequently subsided, searches for the term “WNBA CBA” again surged after Minnesota Lynx star Napheesa Collier lambasted Engelbert’s leadership at the end of September. It has remained a topic of interest, experiencing a slight uptick this week, according to Google search data.
The talks’ key principals have also been the focus of newfound attention, as searches for Engelbert this month have been around 10 times as frequent as they were a year ago at this time, per Google search data, and around 20 times more than when she was hired in May 2019. Google search data for Collier also peaked in early October.
The letter also reflects a political faction engaging with the issue largely for the first time, but other groups have been tuned in to the CBA discussions.
Players Association representatives have been in contact with other unions for multiple years, sharing information about what their core issues are with the current CBA structure, while also explaining the systems underlying their frustrations.
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In September 2024, the Washington Labor Council AFL-CIO published a resolution in support of Seattle Storm players in the contract talks, becoming the first AFL-CIO chapter to voice its support for the WNBPA in the negotiations. Eighty-five lawmakers from the Democratic Women’s Caucus and the House Democratic Caucus sent an open letter to Engelbert this summer, demanding the league “bargain in good faith.” Jackson was also a co-grand marshal of the New York City Labor Day Parade, which gathered members from more than 200 unions and constituency groups.
“The league jeopardizing the start of the 2026 season, it’s not just basketball, it’s not just the players who would feel that,” said Erin Drake, WNBPA senior advisor and legal counsel. “It’s their constituents too. I think people feel that.”
The WNBA has disputed the characterization by the WNBPA that it’s trying to run out the clock in the negotiations.
“It is frustrating and counterproductive for the union to be making misrepresentations about our proposals while also accusing the league of engaging in delay. That is simply not true,” a WNBA spokesperson said in a statement this week. “We stand ready to continue negotiating in good faith and hope they will do the same so that we can finalize a mutually beneficial new CBA as quickly as possible.”
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As The Athletic previously reported, the league is proposing a revenue-sharing system similar in structure to what is currently in their CBA, in which there is a fixed salary cap and additional revenue sharing only if league revenue exceeds certain targets. The WNBPA, meanwhile, proposed a salary framework tied to the WNBA business, in which player salaries are linked to a percentage of the revenue generated by the league. Both plans include a substantial salary increase for players.
Friday’s letter is Mamdani’s latest foray into the sports space, as he has been outspoken in recent weeks about FIFA’s dynamic ticket pricing policy for the men’s World Cup in the U.S., Canada and Mexico in June and July. In September, he launched a “Game Over Greed” petition, calling on soccer’s world governing body to set aside 15 percent of tickets for local residents at a discount and to reinstate a cap on ticket resales for the tournament.
Players see the continued calls for changes in their working conditions as a continuation of their activism, which included campaigning for Raphael Warnock when he ran for the U.S. Senate as a Democrat from Georgia and raising awareness for victims of police brutality and racial violence in the aftermath of Breonna Taylor’s death in 2020.
“I don’t care when you got in this fight, I just care that you’re here,” Cabán said. “As there’s more energy and attention being put on this WNBA negotiation, you’re going to see more people join the fight and that’s exactly what we want.
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“What I hope is that the message is heard.”
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
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