{"id":397993,"date":"2026-01-09T09:00:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-09T09:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/397993\/"},"modified":"2026-01-09T09:00:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-09T09:00:10","slug":"breanna-stewart-declares-wnba-players-not-coming-to-an-agreement-as-cba-talks-hit-deadline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/397993\/","title":{"rendered":"Breanna Stewart Declares WNBA, Players \u2018Not Coming to an Agreement\u2019 as CBA Talks Hit Deadline"},"content":{"rendered":"

The WNBA<\/a>\u2019s labor talks are poised to stretch well beyond this week\u2019s deadline, with players and the league preparing to negotiate under existing terms rather than finalize a new agreement.<\/p>\n

That reality was laid out bluntly by Breanna Stewart<\/a>, a cornerstone of the New York Liberty and a vice president of the WNBPA, who confirmed Thursday that an extension of the current collective bargaining agreement will not be reached before the cutoff.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are not coming to an agreement by tomorrow, I can tell you that,\u201d Stewart said.
\n\u201cWe\u2019re just going to continue to negotiate in good faith.\u201d<\/p>\n

Her comments came after practice with Unrivaled<\/a>, where several high-profile players acknowledged that the talks, while tense, are far from broken. Instead, the league and union will enter what both sides describe as a \u201cstatus quo\u201d period, keeping the current CBA in place while negotiations continue without a formal extension.<\/p>\n

Behind the scenes, the stakes are significant. In mid-December, WNBA players voted to grant union leadership expanded authority, including the option to initiate a strike if negotiations stall. That leadership group includes WNBPA president Nneka Ogwumike, Stewart, and co-vice president Napheesa Collier. Stewart made clear that while the strike mechanism exists, it is not an immediate next step.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot something that we\u2019re going to do right this second,\u201d Stewart said.
\n\u201cBut we have that in our back pocket.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to reporting by ESPN<\/a>, league officials are not considering a lockout and remain confident that a deal will eventually be reached, preserving a 2026 season. That confidence persists even as negotiations remain far apart on their most contentious issue: how revenue should be defined and shared.<\/p>\n

At the core of the dispute is whether player compensation should be tied to gross revenue or net revenue. The WNBA has proposed a model in which players would receive more than 50% of net revenue \u2014 money calculated after expenses are deducted \u2014 arguing that gross figures do not accurately reflect the costs of operating teams and the league. The union, however, has pushed for a system based on gross revenue, maintaining that players should not be disadvantaged by expenses they do not control.<\/p>\n

Sources cited by ESPN have said the league projects that a union proposal granting players roughly 30% of gross revenue and establishing a salary cap around $10.5 million would generate approximately $700 million in losses over the life of the agreement, exceeding the combined losses from the league\u2019s first 29 years. A source close to the negotiations countered that the union believes its proposal would still leave the league profitable.<\/p>\n

Despite those sharply different projections, players emphasized that compromise \u2014 however difficult \u2014 is unavoidable.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we are both seemingly far apart, there is a place where we can come and find a mutual ground,\u201d Stewart said.<\/p>\n

For now, the deadline will pass without resolution. The existing CBA remains intact, leverage remains in reserve, and the next phase of negotiations will test whether the league and its players can close the gap on how the WNBA\u2019s future growth is shared.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The WNBA\u2019s labor talks are poised to stretch well beyond this week\u2019s deadline, with players and the league…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":397994,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":["post-397993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397993","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=397993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/397994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}