Negotiations stretched into the early hours of Wednesday morning as the WNBA and players union worked against the March 10 deadline set by the league for the 2026 season to start on time.<\/p>\n
Around 3 a.m. ET, 10 hours after they arrived, players were seen leaving the Manhattan hotel where meetings were held. They gave no comment, but union executive director Terri Jackson spoke to reporters nearly an hour later about the lack of a deal. Jackson characterized the negotiations<\/a> as \u201cconversation going in the right direction,\u201d but gave no indication that a deal would be reached in the following days.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert spoke briefly to reporters without taking questions, saying the sides are working hard toward a \u201cwin-win deal,\u201d but there is still \u201ca lot of work left to do.\u201d<\/p>\n The two sides picked things back up on Wednesday and have reportedly exchanged proposals<\/a>, but no deal has been reached yet.<\/p>\n In February, the league suggested to the players union that Tuesday would mark the point where the season would be delayed if no collective bargaining agreement was reached, as Yahoo Sports previously confirmed. The 2026 season is scheduled to begin May 8.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Prior to Tuesday, proposals had been exchanged as recently as Saturday, but neither side would share details on the changes that were made in them.<\/p>\n The league and players union entered a “status quo” period<\/a> and continued negotiating in good faith after the second deadline extension expired on Jan. 9. A moratorium deal days afterward put free agency on hold<\/a>, and the sides met in person on Feb. 2 for the first time in months. Since then, the union and league have traded proposals while cracks emerged in the player contingent<\/a>.<\/p>\n Players opted out of the previous CBA in October 2024 to advocate for a revenue-sharing structure that would tie their salaries to the business.<\/a> They\u2019ve centered it as their No. 1 priority, including wearing \u201cPay Us What You Owe Us<\/a>\u201d T-shirts at All-Star, and into the heat of tense negotiations.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Engelbert said repeatedly that the league wants players to make more, and they would, but there were disagreements on how that would look. There was a revenue-sharing model in the previous CBA, but it was structured with thresholds that must be met. For the first time in history, the league made enough money in 2025<\/a> to trigger revenue sharing. During negotiations, the league offered deals based on the percentage of net revenue, whereas the union used gross revenue and included expansion fee monies in its offers.<\/p>\n