There haven\u2019t been many negotiation updates since the WNBA CBA expired on Jan. 9 and the league entered \u201cstatus quo\u201d mode. As of today, we know why: because the WNBA hasn\u2019t responded to the WNBPA\u2019s latest proposal, which was sent to the league over a month ago.<\/p>\n
According to a new update from ESPN<\/a>, the players sent their latest CBA proposal to the WNBA to review a month ago. The WNBA hasn\u2019t responded, and Alexa Philippou reports that it is because the league \u201cbelieves it didn\u2019t warrant a response.\u201d Apparently, it was too similar to the last proposal, and the WNBA is waiting for the players to be \u201cmore realistic.\u201d<\/p>\n The idea of a work stoppage hasn\u2019t seemed like a path either side would realistically take\u2026 until this update. The fact that we are this deep into negotiations and the league is 1) not responding to proposals and 2) saying the players need to be \u201crealistic\u201d when this is likely a proposal that has included some compromise from the union? It feels dicey.<\/p>\n Like we\u2019ve talked about in the past, there is really no point in the WNBA holding a lockout \u2014 it wouldn\u2019t do anyone any good. The WNBA isn\u2019t like the NBA in the sense that it doesn\u2019t ban players from playing in other leagues. Locking players out only works when they can\u2019t go seek other places to play and train. A strike, on the other hand? That has the opposite effect, essentially stopping the league in its tracks after they just announced the 2026 season schedule last week<\/a>.<\/p>\n The fact that the league and the players just haven\u2019t spoken in weeks gives the impression that we are still very far apart on any deal. Which means whatever \u201coffseason\u201d is ahead for the WNBA when (if?) a deal does happen gets more precarious by the day. As we all know at this point, the league needs to cram in a two-team expansion draft, 100+ players need to be signed to teams, and a WNBA draft needs to happen. As the days tick on, the prospect of fitting that all in before training camp starts in April is\u2026 dubious.<\/p>\n Looking in from the outside, it feels like the league should be the ones trying to get something going here. They are the ones who are booking venues for games in the summer, selling tickets, and making sponsorship deals happen. They have so much more to lose by the 2026 season not happening, where the players are off making their own money in other leagues, and are still able to operate other business ventures, even if the 2026 season doesn\u2019t happen. Of course, they want to play, but they have been super vocal about holding strong on their wants and needs here. You\u2019d think it would be the other way around \u2014 that the players aren\u2019t responding to the league\u2019s proposals.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not really a concrete update, but this stalemate is just an indication that we shouldn\u2019t necessarily expect CBA news in the immediate future\u2026 or a WNBA season at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There haven\u2019t been many negotiation updates since the WNBA CBA expired on Jan. 9 and the league entered…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":439272,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":["post-439271","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\/439271","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=439271"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/439271\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/439272"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439271"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=439271"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=439271"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}