The WNBA and the Women’s National Basketball Players Association have agreed to an extension to continue negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement through Jan. 9, 2026, the WNBA said in a statement to IndyStar 24 minutes before the CBA was set to expire.
The statement said that either side has the option to terminate the extension by giving 48 hours’ advance notice as the two sides “are continuing to work toward a new agreement.” That is similar to the option the players had in their first extension agreement Oct. 30, one day before the CBA was previously set to expire.
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In a statement provided to ESPN, the WNBPA said it proposed the extension, adding: “We expect substantive movement from the league within this window.” The union’s initial offer was for a 24-hour extension, according to ESPN, which also reported the league offered a three-week extension.
The Athletic reported Sunday the two sides have held “regular meetings” since that extension with their latest bargaining session held Saturday.
The two sides could have continued negotiating, but the extension temporarily eliminates the possibility of a work stoppage, be it a player-initiated strike or owner-initiated lockout. The WNBA has not had a work stoppage in its nearly 30-year existence.
Extending the CBA also allows the WNBA offseason to proceed as scheduled, though it is highly unlikely the expansion draft, usually held in December, will take place until a new CBA is ratified. The same applies to free agency, which typically begins in January.
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The WNBA sraft lottery was held earlier this month, with the Dallas Wings receiving the No. 1 overall pick for a second consecutive season.
Players are allowed to continue using team facilities during this time.
Minimal progress in WNBA, WNBPA negotiations, reports say
The latest developments arrive with the two sides still seemingly miles apart in negotiations.
The hang-up: player compensation.
The Associated Press reported Nov. 18 the league made a proposal which included revenue sharing and a maximum salary of more than $1.1 million available to more than one player per team. The new league minimum would be more than $220,000 with an average salary of over $460,000, according to the report.
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Those figures would initially include more than 180 players and increase over the length of the agreement.
The package was intended to bring negotiations to “a quick conclusion,” Feinberg wrote. But two days after details of the WNBA’s latest proposal surfaced, ESPN reported the players association did not view that offering as “something that moves negotiations forward.”
The WNBPA has been pushing for a revamped salary structure, one which relies more on the amount of revenue brought into the league — similar to the NBA’s salary model, According to ESPN, the players association does not believe it includes a system “where the salary cap and player salaries sufficiently grow with the business.”
The salary structure is a fixed rate under the CBA, with a minimum around $66,000 and a supermaximum around $250,000. Player salaries and the team cap increases by 3% each season, and WNBA players receive about 9% of revenue sharing.
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NBA players get 50% of the revenue sharing, and that is reflected in each season’s salary cap for the league.
“It’s a problem that we’re not part of the growth of the league,” Phoenix Mercury forward Satou Sabally, a WNBPA player rep, told reporters during the WNBA Finals. “If we were to continue with this CBA, we would really go down, percentage-wise, on our salaries within the growth of the league.”
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This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: WNBA, WNBPA agree to extension of CBA, avoid work stoppage
