WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said there is urgency to get a new collective bargaining agreement completed by Monday to avoid “disrupting” key dates on the calendar.
“We have to get it done by Monday. I should say, we have to get it done without disrupting some part of the fact that we’ve got to run this two-team expansion (draft),” Engelbert told reporters on Friday. “We’ve got to get expansion going. We’ve got to get free agency going. We’ve got to get the college draft, which is now a month from today.”
The league and union have been holding sessions that spanned double-digit hour totals each day starting Tuesday. Front Office Sports reported Friday that the sides met in a Manhattan hotel until close to 3 a.m. that morning, for a total of 16 hours.
League officials had set March 10 as the deadline for a new CBA agreement to avoid the loss of regular-season games. The 2026 WNBA Draft is scheduled for April 13, training camps are slated to begin on April 19 and the regular season is in line to open on May 8.
The league and the players have been at a standstill for months, with revenue sharing, a revised salary cap and housing among the key issues.
Terri Carmichael Jackson, the Women’s National Basketball Players Association executive director, reiterated Friday that a system “tied to revenue in a meaningful way” remains a priority for players and said there has been progress during these negotiations.
“I think the league, and particularly the commissioner and her team, have heard that transformational remains the goal,” Jackson told reporters Friday. “As long as movement keeps us going in a forward direction, then I think we’re good.”
Nneka Ogwumike, the president of the Women’s National Basketball Players Association executive committee, Breanna Stewart, Brianna Turner, Alysha Clark and Carmichael Jackson represent the union. The league has been represented by Engelbert, head of league operations Bethany Donaphin, New York Liberty owner Clara Wu Tsai, and Connecticut Sun president Jennifer Rizzotti.
–Field Level Media
