As the WNBA and WNBPA enter their final days of CBA negotiations — with a deadline of Friday to either extend talks or possibly begin a work stoppage — sources said WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert was incommunicado last week, which could mean nothing or everything.<\/p>\n
The two sides have meetings scheduled for either today or Tuesday or both, according to people familiar with the itinerary, and there\u2019s ongoing curiosity about what role Engelbert <\/a>will play, if any. Ever since the Sept. 30 Napheesa Collier press conference<\/a>, in which the Lynx star criticized the WNBA\u2019s leadership and Engelbert issued denials <\/a>days later, the commissioner has supposedly attended just one negotiation session.<\/p>\n According to multiple sources with knowledge of the meeting, it was a day Engelbert and Collier were face-to-face for the first time since Collier cancelled a supposed conciliatory get-together with the commissioner. And although insiders said the session was all-business, they also mentioned Engelbert \u201cbarely looked\u201d at Collier, except to alert her she had made All-WNBA first team, and never attempted to reconcile. \u201cThere was nothing. No sidebar. No, \u2018Hey, I\u2019m sorry,\u2019\u201d said one source. \u201cSo, I just think it\u2019s irreparable.\u201d<\/p>\n In fairness to Engelbert, she may not have viewed a bargaining session as the place and time to mend her relationship with Collier, and it\u2019s possible Engelbert was incommunicado in recent days due to previously scheduled commitments, which could explain why there were no face-to-face bargaining sessions last week. <\/p>\n As the negotiations re-commence, the same core issue is in play: revenue sharing. In the simplest terms, the union wants salaries to grow as league revenue grows, and the league seemed to imply in a statement last week that it agrees: \u201cThe comprehensive proposal we provided to the Players Association includes both significant guaranteed salary cap increases and substantial uncapped revenue sharing that enables player salaries to grow as the league\u2019s business grows,\u201d the league wrote.<\/p>\n Problem is, each side has disparate definitions of league business. Sources have said the WNBPA wants team revenue to be included in the CBA revenue share, such as gate receipts and team sponsorships — somewhat similar to how NBA players receive what\u2019s called Basketball Related Income (BRI). They\u2019re not asking for a 50-50 or even a 40-60 split, either. But that\u2019s the main sticking point as of now: The union believes the W\u2019s idea of revenue sharing is based on incremental growth from league business only (not team revenue), and, not only that, the league money would only be shared \u201cif certain revenue targets are hit and only after the league pays itself back for expenses first.\u201d<\/p>\n The other issue is that the WNBPA insists the league is still offering a capped salary model similar to the current structure that only grows annually by a fixed single-digit percentage. The league conversely maintained Wednesday that the salary model is uncapped. That duality has to be sorted out in this week\u2019s bargaining sessions, or the odds of a work stoppage increase.<\/p>\n The big picture, though, is that there has been at least some microscopic movement in recent bargaining sessions, with one insider saying, \u201cThere\u2019s no impasse here; everyone\u2019s still planning to meet.\u201d The prevailing opinion is that if sessions aren\u2019t acrimonious this week, and there\u2019s perhaps even the slightest bit of momentum, there will be an extension of the current CBA on Friday. At that point, the two sides would continue negotiations in good faith, with the idea an agreement can be hammered out by the end of the year.<\/p>\n But worst case, if there\u2019s contentiousness this week, the players could refuse an extension and see a league-issued lockout. A third scenario would be a player strike — but that\u2019s only if talks go due south by Friday. <\/p>\n The players are dug in. The WNBA salaries are not so lucrative now that the players would suffer irreparable harm financially from a long work stoppage. The players have Unrivaled, Athletes Unlimited and International basketball to earn money from, and reports that Maverick Carter is contemplating the launch of a women\u2019s league is a curiosity in union circles, as well. \u201cI don\u2019t know if he\u2019s being put up to this,\u201d said a source of Carter. \u201cMaybe he did it to help the players.\u201d<\/p>\n The other wild card is NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, who, according to executives league-wide, has often said he does not want to go down as someone who disrespected women\u2019s basketball. \u201cAdam doesn\u2019t want the headline that he doesn\u2019t support women,\u201d one of them said. \u201cSo I think he intentionally has inserted himself here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the WNBA and WNBPA enter their final days of CBA negotiations — with a deadline of Friday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243468,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-243467","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243467","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=243467"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243467\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243468"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243467"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243467"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243467"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}