During her Indiana Fever exit interview earlier this month, Sophie Cunningham warned fans about the looming work stoppage. “There’s a potential lockout,” she said. “I promise you, we aren’t going to play until they give us what we deserve.”
It’s a relatively benign statement on its face, one that sounds similar to what other WNBA players and union leaders have said over the past few weeks as the league’s prolonged CBA negotiations failed to produce a new deal. But it also shows how one rhetorical choice, whether intentional or not, has come to define the early parts of this ongoing labor feud.
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What Cunningham appears to be describing—players refusing to play—sounds a lot more like a strike than a lockout. And with a potential work stoppage on the horizon, “lockout” is the term that’s been used overwhelmingly by many when discussing that possibility.
The WNBA and WNBPA agreed late Thursday night to a 30-day negotiating extension, but should a work stoppage eventually happen, it seems way more likely to be a strike than a lockout. The two terms are sometimes used interchangeably in media, fan discussions and player press conferences, but they’re not synonyms. In fact, they concern opposite actions.
A lockout is when owners are dissatisfied with a CBA or with an expired CBA that continues during a status quo period—meaning after a CBA has expired, but while wages and medical benefits continue, because both sides continue to bargain. A strike, in contrast, is when players are dissatisfied with a CBA or an expired CBA.
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Both a lockout and strike involve one side going on offense to pressure the other side to make a better offer on a new CBA. Both also often lead to litigation in federal court and the filing of unfair labor practices charges with the NLRB. But one reflects a move by owners, and the other by players.
The WNBA labor dispute is about players’ unhappiness with the current CBA. The players argue the CBA is inadequate in compensation and other terms of employment, and the union exercised an option to end the current deal early. Meanwhile, the league appears reasonably comfortable with the current CBA. Although WNBA franchise values, expansion fees and TV ratings have climbed dramatically in recent years, the league reportedly still lost $40 million in 2024.
That’s an important point of distinction in the labor dispute.
The current labor deal was originally set to expire Friday, but the extension will now push that deadline to the end of next month. If the WNBA and WNBPA fail to reach a deal by Nov. 30 or fail to agree on another extension of that deadline, their CBA will expire. However, that expired CBA may remain in effect indefinitely during a status quo period. That’s true so long as the two sides are bargaining in good faith.
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In some industries, work stoppages occur with little confusion over who’s taking action. When autoworkers in Michigan formed picket lines outside of manufacturing plants in 2023, for example, it was widely recognized nationally as a strike. In sports, however, where many athletes are extremely well compensated and there’s a team/owner/union dynamic, things are typically a little blurrier.
The NFL and its players went through this back in 2011, when a five-month work stoppage threatened to disrupt the upcoming regular season. That was a lockout—the players were willing to keep working under the expired agreement—but the public statements from owners seemed clearly aimed at muddying the waters.
In a letter written to fans at the start of the lockout, commissioner Roger Goodell said the NFLPA had “walked away from mediation and collective bargaining,” positioning owners as working “tirelessly” in pursuit of a deal. The letter does not use the word “lockout.” New York Giants owner John Mara said on a radio hit that players weren’t committed to negotiating; Bengals owner Mike Brown said the NFLPA was acting “very un-union like.” There are plenty of other examples.
The union, for its part, was also very aware of the messaging. If reporters used the catchall phrase “work stoppage” in interviews, NFLPA leaders would often interrupt the conversation to highlight “lockout” as the more accurate term.
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For these current WNBA negotiations, for whatever reason, lockout has become the go-to term. A recent NBC headline says, “WNBA Lockout Looming.” A Sporting News headline reads, “WNBA Lockout, explained.” A Google Trends analysis of search trends shows multiple spikes for “WNBA lockout” in the past seven days, and none for “WNBA strike.”
Part of this may have to do with how the public views this specific labor battle. In the major men’s leagues, players and owners both draw strife from the public during prolonged labor fights. The owners are rich and greedy, many think, but so are these highly compensated players. In the WNBA, very few fans view players as well-paid. That’s led an overwhelming number to view the WNBA (and the NBA as well) as the guiltier party, the one threatening to disrupt games. “Lockout” fits that narrative significantly better than “strike.”
Sometimes, the expiration of a CBA is portrayed as the start of a labor dispute, but that’s often not true. Consider that U.S. Soccer and the U.S. Men’s National Soccer Team went four years (2018 to 2022) between the expiration of one CBA and agreement on a new one, and the team played as scheduled. If both sides prefer continuing with the terms of an expired CBA over launching a strike or lockout, which in turn often leads to litigation, they’ll continue with their CBA until they reach a new deal—even if it takes years.
WNBA players could decide to go on strike at any time. A strike in the offseason would be disruptive in a lot of ways, including for WNBA teams in setting rosters, but a strike that leads to the cancellation of games would apply more pressure. Preseason games for the 2026 WNBA season are set to begin in May.
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As Sportico recently explained, the players could also decertify or disclaim interest, meaning the WNBPA would no longer serve as their exclusive bargaining representative. In that scenario, the players could sue the WNBA and its teams in an antitrust suit, since the terms of employment—including the salary cap and free agency rules—would no longer be protected by the non-statutory labor exemption. The exemption immunizes CBA terms from antitrust scrutiny, because union and management bargained for them. In return, the WNBA would argue the decertification is a sham to facilitate antitrust litigation.
Sports labor disputes in the 21st century have mainly involved lockouts, with the NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB all locking out their players as part of labor disputes. Strikes, meanwhile, mainly occurred in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. One exception, albeit with an asterisk, is when NBA players walked out and refused to play in protest of racism and the killing of George Floyd. The media generally termed that action a wildcat strike—meaning a strike without union authorization—but that term wasn’t a perfect fit, since the NBPA was not in opposition. Either way, it was not a strike in a labor dispute with the NBA.
The WNBA labor dispute is about player power. That is also true regarding how the dispute connects to labor law. If one side goes on labor law offense, it will most likely be the players.
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