{"id":487112,"date":"2026-02-20T07:15:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T07:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/487112\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T07:15:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T07:15:11","slug":"wnba-playing-a-most-dangerous-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/487112\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBA playing a most dangerous game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Much has been made of the WNBA\u2019s ongoing CBA negotiations with the WNBAPA, which is getting dangerously close to impacting the start of the 2026 campaign. On Tuesday, the WNBAPA submitted its counterproposal to the league\u2019s latest offer, which included more concessions than most fans and analysts expected, considering the hardball the Players Association has been playing publicly.<\/p>\n<p>Still, the league\u2019s response was a disheartening one for anyone hoping to see things wrapped succintly saying that it was \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/alexaphilippou\/status\/2023978434901291096?s=20\" rel=\"nofollow\">unrealistic &amp; would cause hundreds of millions of dollars of losses<\/a> for our teams. We\u2026 are running out of time. We believe the WNBA\u2019s proposal would result in a huge win for current players &amp; generations to come.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s an interesting reaction, considering the league has refused to publish any refutable numbers or dive into the league\u2019s financials to substantiate its claims.<\/p>\n<p>A recent anonymous survey of players with WNBA ties, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/wnba\/story\/_\/id\/47895660\/wnba-cba-confidential-athletes-unlimited-players-negotiations-union-league\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">conducted by ESPN<\/a>, reveals just how close the league\u2019s stance is to resulting in a lost season.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think [the league and owners] just feel that we\u2019re gonna just sign, and we\u2019re not. We\u2019re gonna just sit out if that\u2019s the case. Like, we deserve it,\u201d one player said when asked how anxious she was about the state of negotiations.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s either gonna happen, or it\u2019s not. I can\u2019t worry about it. Not gonna stress myself over something I can\u2019t control,\u201d responded another.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel like it\u2019s not imminent at this point,\u201d executive committee treasurer\u00a0Brianna Turner said of the WNBAPA calling a strike, which the union has already authorized it to do. \u201cIt\u2019s still early February, like we\u2019re still going. So I feel like we\u2019re still in a waiting game at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s time for WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert and the owners to pony up before they ruin one of the best things going in sports.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Much has been made of the WNBA\u2019s ongoing CBA negotiations with the WNBAPA, which is getting dangerously close&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487113,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,11628,82,630,8811,118313],"class_list":["post-487112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-cathy-engelbert","tag-sports","tag-wnba","tag-wnba-cba","tag-wnbapa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487112","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=487112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487112\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487113"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}