Breanna Stewart, Kelsey Plum criticize WNBPA's handling of WNBA CBA talks

Yahoo Sports Daily hosts Caroline Fenton and Jason Fitz react to Breanna Stewart and Kelsey Plum‘s letter to the WNBPA head voicing their concerns over the players union’s handling of the WNBA CBA negotiations. Watch the full episode of Yahoo Sports Daily on YouTube or YahooSports.TV.

Video Transcript

Yesterday we got a wild report from ESPN, great reporting, from multiple reporters talking about a letter that was written from Kelsey Plum and Breanna Stewart, two of the biggest names in WNBA, in the WNBA right now.

it was acquired by ESPN, it was a letter to the WNBPA executive, Terry Jackson, that expresses this, this quote, “Serious concerns about how the PA is handling the current negotiation.”

They talked about lack of communication with the players, they talked about whether or not they should be negotiating from the offer from the league.

This was the first time we’ve seen the proverbial crack in the armor, Caroline, as these negotiations always get hairy, and now you have the owners who are sitting over here, at least from the outside looking in, unified, which is what we thought of the players, but 24 hours ago when this report became com- public, that sudden unification is now in question.

There has been a shift in public sentiment and in, like feeling and vibe, for lack of a better word, throughout these negotiations.

If we wanna go back to last summer, to last fall, it felt like the players were so unified while the league itself and the owners were just trying to kind of, you know, dot their I’s and, and cross their T’s.

It felt like there was so much support from the fan base, from the WNBA world, from the basketball world backing the players.

But it feels like there’s been this shift that the owners now feel far more unified than the players do, that there’s been this more, you know, public backing for the league, and th- this kind of frustration with the players of like, “Just get this done.

We wanna, we want a season.

We want games to be played.

We don’t want there to be a delay.”

And if you look at the WNBA calendar, it’s tight, it’s packed, it’s pretty jam-packed over the next month and some change.

You have two expansion drafts, or at least a draft for two expansion teams.

You have the collegiate draft that’s coming up.

And also, I don’t know if anybody’s looked at their calendar, it’s March.

The basketball world’s pretty busy in the month of March.

So you have all of these things that need to be done.

You have a training camp that needs to go off.

You have all of these things that need to be done, and we don’t even know, what the players are going to be making this next year.

We don’t even know how long the next PA is going to be.

Deadlines breed urgency, and I think now, more so than ever, and this letter is the example of that, it’s proof of that, that the WNBPA, the Players Association, the players themselves, are feeling the heat of that deadline and are understanding the gravity of missing games.

That, look, we want something.

We want this target number in revenue share.

If the league’s not gonna budge, then we’re going to have to budge.

Because what helps our bottom line more than anything is playing basketball, far more than playing a hardball in negotiations

Breanna Stewart, Kelsey Plum criticize WNBPA’s handling of WNBA CBA talks

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