{"id":355808,"date":"2025-12-19T16:18:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-19T16:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/355808\/"},"modified":"2025-12-19T16:18:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T16:18:08","slug":"wnba-players-express-importance-of-playing-next-season-amid-strike-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/355808\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBA players express importance of playing next season amid strike vote"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some WNBAers have \u201cunderscored the need to play in 2026\u201d — despite players voting nearly unanimously to authorize its union to strike if necessary<\/a> — \u201choping to keep the momentum the WNBA has gained over the past couple seasons,\u201d according to Chloe Peterson of the INDIANAPOLIS STAR. Fever Gs Caitlin Clark<\/a> and Sophie Cunningham have both previously pointed out how important playing next season is (INDIANAPOLIS STAR, 12\/18<\/a>). Liberty F\u202fBreanna Stewart, who is also a WNBPA VP, said that negotiations are \u201cheaded toward a \u2018standoff\u2019 because \u2018what we\u2019re doing right now isn\u2019t really working.\u2019\u201d USA TODAY\u2019s Cydney Henderson reported Stewart even \u201cinvited NBA Commissioner Adam Silver to the negotiating table, one day after Silver said he\u2019d be willing to join talks<\/a> in hopes of getting a deal done to avoid a lockout or a strike.\u201d Stewart said, \u201cWe\u2019re the ones that are willing to compromise and they still aren\u2019t budging. If they\u2019re not going to budge, we\u2019re going to get to this point where we\u2019re just going to be at a standoff.\u201d She added, \u201cWe know how important as players it is to play and to be on the court. But at the same time, if we\u2019re not going to be valued the way that we know we should be, in the way that every kind of number situation tells us, then we\u2019re just not going to do something that doesn\u2019t make sense for us\u201d (USA TODAY, 12\/18<\/a>).<\/p>\n

AHEAD OF SCHEDULE: ESPN.com\u2019s Kevin Pelton noted the league and its players are \u201cstill ahead of the schedule compared with completing past CBA negotiations,\u201d including one in 2003 that was not resolved until April, shortly before a deadline set by the WNBA to avoid canceling that season\u2019s scheduled play (ESPN.com, 12\/18<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Some WNBAers have \u201cunderscored the need to play in 2026\u201d — despite players voting nearly unanimously to authorize…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":355809,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[461,49,48,82,630,4143],"class_list":["post-355808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-basketball","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-wnba","tag-womens-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355808","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=355808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/355808\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/355809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=355808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=355808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=355808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}