{"id":193695,"date":"2025-10-06T19:33:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T19:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/193695\/"},"modified":"2025-10-06T19:33:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-06T19:33:09","slug":"wnba-execs-hammer-napheesa-collier-for-alleged-conflict-of-interest-amid-cathy-engelbert-feud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/193695\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBA execs hammer Napheesa Collier for alleged conflict of interest amid Cathy Engelbert feud"},"content":{"rendered":"

WNBA execs hammer Napheesa Collier for alleged conflict of interest amid Cathy Engelbert feud<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a> . Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In 25 days, the WNBA’s collective bargaining agreement expires. Despite remarks from commissioner Cathy Engelbert that struck an optimistic tone last Friday, the prospect of a work stoppage seems to be growing by the day — and the timing could not be worse, given the WNBA’s explosion in popularity this decade.<\/p>\n

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An 11-year, $2.2 billion media rights deal will take effect beginning in 2026 while the league is commanding $250 million expansion fees<\/a> for new franchises. The Women’s National Basketball Players Association, whose constituents receive 9.3 percent<\/a> of the league’s revenue, is pushing for significant financial gains in response — and Minnesota Lynx star Napheesa Collier, who is on the WNBPA’s executive committee,\u00a0just severed her ties to Engelbert<\/a>.<\/p>\n

MORE:\u00a0Cathy Engelbert press conference: WNBA Commissioner says there were ‘inaccuracies’ in Napheesa Collier’s exit interview<\/a><\/p>\n

A new report from ESPN<\/a> on Monday laid bare league executives’ concerns that Collier<\/a> — who last week recited a four-minute prepared statement blasting Engelbert’s leadership — has an ulterior motive in her approach to the CBA negotiations. These league sources suspect that Collier wants to leverage the threat of a work stoppage to promote Unrivaled, the 3-on-3 offseason league that they believe is a “competitor” to the WNBA.<\/p>\n

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“It’s a total conflict of interest,” one league source told ESPN of Collier’s role as WNBPA executive committee member and Unrivaled co-founder. “Her husband (Alex Bazzell) runs the league that’s in competition with the W, and she has equity in it.”<\/p>\n

However, it can be argued that the framing of Unrivaled — an offseason league that is a domestic alternative for players who used to have to go overseas to earn a living in between seasons — as a true competitor to the WNBA lets the league “off the hook” during this period of continuous growth. For example, it was only last year that the WNBA approved a $50 million investment<\/a> to guarantee chartered flights for its players. The league has been in existence since 1997.<\/p>\n

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Unrivaled, co-founded by Collier and two-time WNBA MVP Breanna Stewart, has been able to guarantee larger salaries<\/a> to its signees relative to what they have received under the current WNBA CBA. And as the ESPN report reveals, Collier and Stewart offered to the league equity in Unrivaled prior to its debut in January; the offer was rejected.<\/p>\n

That offer was made with the backing of a majority of players, who had to vote on adding Collier and Stewart to the executive committee in the first place. So far, those players — including stars like Caitlin Clark and A’ja Wilson — have thrown their support behind Collier amid her explosive statement against league leadership, weakening claims that the MVP runner-up has a “substantive conflict of interest,” as league sources termed it.<\/p>\n

MORE WNBA NEWS:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WNBA execs hammer Napheesa Collier for alleged conflict of interest amid Cathy Engelbert feud originally appeared on The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":193696,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[4662,49,735,48,11628,1161,96419,96420,729,82,630,95013,96421],"class_list":["post-193695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-aja-wilson","tag-ca","tag-caitlin-clark","tag-canada","tag-cathy-engelbert","tag-espn","tag-executive-committee","tag-league-sources","tag-napheesa-collier","tag-sports","tag-wnba","tag-wnba-commissioner","tag-womens-national-basketball-players-association"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193695","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=193695"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/193695\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/193696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=193695"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=193695"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=193695"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}