{"id":356671,"date":"2025-12-20T01:29:10","date_gmt":"2025-12-20T01:29:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/356671\/"},"modified":"2025-12-20T01:29:10","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T01:29:10","slug":"caitlin-clark-cba-message-finds-support-from-wnba-veteran","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/356671\/","title":{"rendered":"Caitlin Clark CBA Message Finds Support From WNBA Veteran"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5o\">Indiana Fever superstar guard Caitlin Clark spoke with the media after a Team USA training camp practice on December 12 and was asked her opinion of the ongoing CBA negotiations between the league office and the players&#8217; association. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5r\">&#8220;I think the most important thing for myself in thinking about these CBA negotiations is like, this is the biggest moment the WNBA has ever seen. And it&#8217;s not something that can be messed up. And you know, we&#8217;re gonna fight for everything we deserve. But at the same time, we need to play basketball,&#8221; Clark said. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5u\">She then added, &#8220;That&#8217;s what our fans crave, and that&#8217;s what all of you crave, as well. You want the product on the floor. At the end of the day, that&#8217;s how you make your money, that&#8217;s how you&#8217;re marketable, that&#8217;s what the fans get excited about, that&#8217;s what the fans want to show up for. So it&#8217;s business, it&#8217;s a negotiation. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"5x\">&#8220;But like I said, this is the biggest moment in the history of the WNBA, and I don&#8217;t want that to be forgotten. And it&#8217;s important that we find a way to play this next season, and I think our fans, even everybody that has played in this league before us, deserve that as well,&#8221; Clark continued. <\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/01kcwjs3h41r8jwsaj75.jpg\" alt=\"Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22) reacts from the bench on September 30, 2025\" title=\"Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22) reacts from the bench on September 30, 2025\" width=\"3622\" height=\"2037\" class=\"undefined w-full w-full blur-[5px]\" q:id=\"66\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Sep 30, 2025; Las Vegas, Nevada, USA; Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22) reacts from the bench after a play made by the Las Vegas Aces during the fourth quarter of game five of the second round for the 2025 WNBA Playoffs at Michelob Ultra Arena. Mandatory Credit: Stephen R. Sylvanie-Imagn Images | Stephen R. Sylvanie-Imagn Images<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6a\">Surprisingly, Clark received some backlash from select members of the women&#8217;s basketball community for these comments. They tried to make it seem like Clark&#8217;s emphasizing the need for the WNBA to play games in 2026 was her going against the players&#8217; association&#8217;s wishes, since they are seemingly prepared to go on strike and miss games they don&#8217;t their wishes with the new CBA. <\/p>\n<p>Nneka Ogwumike Echoes Caitlin Clark&#8217;s CBA Stance<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6g\">However, the fact that the WNBPA (the league&#8217;s players&#8217; association) reposted her comments on their social media channels later that day serves as proof they backed her comments. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-9\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6j\">And if there was any more debate, WNBA star Nneka Ogwumike (who is the WNBPA President) shared a similar stance as No. 22 when speaking with ESPN for<a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/story\/_\/id\/47360397\/wnba-players-ready-do-takes-get-fair-cba-deal\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> a December 19 article<\/a>. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6m\">&#8220;We&#8217;re looking for a good deal to get done, but I think we&#8217;re also prepared for whatever it takes for that to happen, while also understanding that we want a 2026 season,&#8221; Ogwumike said. She later added, &#8220;This means we could possibly strike if we need to, but it doesn&#8217;t mean that we want that to happen&#8230; I&#8217;m hopeful. I want to play, and I know that I&#8217;m going to get a good deal done on behalf of these players, along with the amazing leadership of this executive committee. So I&#8217;m looking forward to seeing how conversations can be more collaborative.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">WNBPA prez Nneka Ogwumike told ESPN after Thursday&#8217;s strike authorization vote, &#8220;We&#8217;re looking for a good deal to get done but I think we&#8217;re also prepared for whatever it takes for that to happen, while also understanding that we want a 2026 season&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>More:<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/yWCH0GAADO\" rel=\"nofollow\">https:\/\/t.co\/yWCH0GAADO<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Alexa Philippou (@alexaphilippou) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/alexaphilippou\/status\/2002134963391770824?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">December 19, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-12\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"6s\">It&#8217;s good to see Clark receiving support from Ogwumike. Perhaps this can finally quell any undeserved criticism about what Clark had to say.<\/p>\n<p>Recommended Reading:<script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Indiana Fever superstar guard Caitlin Clark spoke with the media after a Team USA training camp practice on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-356671","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\/356671","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=356671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}