{"id":423525,"date":"2026-01-21T11:50:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-21T11:50:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/423525\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T11:50:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T11:50:19","slug":"what-a-potential-wnba-work-stoppage-could-look-like","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/423525\/","title":{"rendered":"What a potential WNBA work stoppage could look like"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-womens-sports \">With no resolution yet between <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2026\/01\/09\/wnba-deadline-expires-with-no-deal-leading-to-uncertain-2026-season\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.sportsbusinessjournal.com\/Articles\/2026\/01\/09\/wnba-deadline-expires-with-no-deal-leading-to-uncertain-2026-season\/\">the WNBA and its players<\/a>, we asked SBJ basketball writer Tom Friend to give us his take on what could be next:<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph sections-womens-sports \">The WNBA and its union are in a stare down over revenue sharing, and unless the league accepts the WNBPA\u2019s request for a 30% split of the pie by around Feb. 1, the chances of a player strike will spike. Both sides have leverage. The players can earn money in leagues like Unrivaled, Athletes Unlimited and, next fall, Project B \u2014 while the NBA can live for months, maybe a year, without the WNBA revenue. The difference? The players have public sentiment on their side, have vowed not to cave in like they have in previous CBA negotiations and have already authorized a strike. Meanwhile, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, who oversees WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, prefers to keep WNBA momentum going, and insiders believe he wants to avoid a perception that he\u2019s stomping on generally underpaid women players. If there\u2019s a work stoppage, it\u2019ll almost certainly be a player picket line.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" data-chromatic=\"ignore\" alt=\"Bar graph breaking down the lengths of recent work stoppages in professional sports.\" class=\"c-image\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/3K2B6JKPNNBIBJB4HL7CSCPOFQ.png\"  width=\"800\" height=\"442\"\/>SBJ <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With no resolution yet between the WNBA and its players, we asked SBJ basketball writer Tom Friend to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":423526,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,66633,103251,82,630],"class_list":["post-423525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-data-and-insights","tag-data-drive","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423525","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=423525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/423526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}