WNBA Players Association vice president Napheesa Collier is optimistic about collective bargaining negotiations with less than three months until the scheduled start of the 2026 WNBA season.
“We are not where we want to be, but I think negotiations are trending in the right direction,” Collier said Wednesday on Yahoo Sports’ Hoops 360 podcast. “And that’s what you want. You want movement. You don’t want to be in a stalemate. You want there to be hope for the future and I do have that. I think there has to be a lot of movement in a lot of places in the CBA, but the fact that we are moving, I think, is really hopeful.”
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The players association submitted a counterproposal to the WNBA this week that included a concession on revenue-sharing, the wedge issue of the talks, and changes to housing requirements, which have become a late-game contention point. The union dropped its proposed share of gross revenue from approximately 31% to 27.5% in Year 1.
As a players association vice president, Napheesa Collier has been outspoken about the need for change in the WNBA. (Photo by Joe Buglewicz/Getty Images)
(Joe Buglewicz via Getty Images)
The league is proposing revenue sharing based on net revenue, reportedly alleging hundreds of millions in losses if the deal is done off gross revenue. It sent an updated proposal to the union days after the sides met in-person for the first time in 2026, breaking a weeks-long stalemate. The WNBA’s proposal addressed facility standards and housing, two issues a source told Yahoo Sports players spoke of in the meeting.
The most recent deadline extension expired Jan. 9, ushering in a status quo period of good-faith negotiations. The talks are in their 16th month and could soon impact the 2026 schedule that’s slated to start May 8. There still needs to be a two-team expansion draft and an overloaded free agency period, in which nearly every player is unrestricted, before players report to their home markets in April.
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Union members authorized its executive committee to strike when necessary late last year, a move some have voiced support of doing.
“Even though we’re on this labor strike with the W, we’re all here, we’re all playing, we’re all getting paid very sufficiently,” Azurá Stevens said in Philadelphia last month during a tour stop by Unrivaled, the 3×3 league founded by Collier and Breanna Stewart. “So I’m not that upset if the league wants to play around. If we don’t have a season, I have money. I’m getting paid from Unrivaled, and I have other revenues of income as well. It’s really their loss.”
Others are more measured and face a different level of uncertainty if the union were to strike. WNBPA president Nneka Ogwumike and executive director Terri Jackson, both of whom have been in their positions since 2016, visited with players at Athletes Unlimited in Nashville earlier this month. Unlike the headline power at Unrivaled, those players are largely rookies and “middle-tier” income earners without the large-scale revenue streams.
Collier said the union has urged everyone to save their money for the past year and a half, knowing negotiations were upcoming.
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“You never know what’s going to happen,” Collier said. “If there’s not a season, we want to make sure everyone’s prepared. Hopefully everyone is doing that; that’s something we’ve been talking about for a really long time.”
The union leadership checks in continuously with its members and one thing has remained consistent, she said.
“People, no matter [if they’re] middle-tier, the people at the top, rookies, everyone has been really consistent in that we want a season to happen, but if we don’t get the things that we are wanting to stay 10-toes-down on, then we’re going to sit out for as long as that takes,” Collier said. “That’s not what anyone wants, but it’s what we’re willing to do in order to get the things that we feel are fair.”
