With a new soft deadline of Monday hanging over WNBA collective bargaining, the league and its union pressed on through another 15-hour negotiation Friday, with the delicate topic of revenue sharing coming next on Saturday.<\/p>\n
Sources told SBJ that the sides spent Thursday solving many of their differences on league-sanctioned housing and devoted Friday to hammering out secondary or peripheral issues, said to be items such as health and retired player benefits or 401(k). But those sources also said the make-or-break issue of revenue sharing is expected to move center stage this weekend, with a prevailing sense the league has to offer players a percentage split somewhere in the vicinity of 20%-plus or find a salary model that yields the rough equivalent.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s day four and there\u2019s been movement, I think the league and particularly the commissioner and her team have heard that transformational [salary structure] remains the goal,\u201d WNBPA Executive Director Terri Jackson told reporters Friday night outside negotiations at the NBA\/WNBA offices. \u201cSalaries would be tied to revenue in a meaningful way is the players\u2019 top priority or one of their top priorities.\u201d<\/p>\n
If no rev share consensus can be reached over the next 48 hours, however, the upcoming WNBA season could become unrecognizable. On Friday night, Commissioner Cathy Engelbert told the gathered media, \u201cWe have to get a deal done by Monday\u2019\u2019 to ensure there is not an altered training camp period that, for now, is set to begin April 19.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve never been a betting woman in my life, and I\u2019m not going to start now,\u2019\u2019 Engelbert told a group of reporters Friday night during a bargaining interlude. \u201cBut we have to get a deal done by Monday. We have to get it done without disrupting some part of the fact that we\u2019ve got to run this two-team expansion [draft]. We have to get expansion going. We got to get free agency going. We got to get the college draft.\u201d<\/p>\n
The league has, as expected, already begun ideating emergency plans if the CBA talks drag on much longer. Sources said the first week of the regular season could soon be in jeopardy of being pushed back, and \u2014 if talks remain at an impasse perhaps into April \u2014 multiple sources said a more drastic scenario could be to play WNBA regular season games during the planned three-week hiatus for the Women\u2019s World Cup in Germany.<\/p>\n
In that time frame, from Aug. 29 through Sept. 16, the league\u2019s most marquee players will be overseas competing for their countries, such as Caitlin Clark, Kelsey Plum, Angel Reese and Paige Bueckers. So sources said it is conceivable \u2014although perhaps only as a last resort \u2014that if the CBA dispute lingers on, WNBA teams may be forced to play regular season games in that World Cup window without their best players.<\/p>\n
Whether that scenario is plausible or even acceptable, teams from all over the league now believe anything is possible \u2014 knowing that until revenue share is agreed upon, the CBA talks will remain at an impasse. As it stands, the league has apparently raised its original rev share offer of just under 15% to over 16%, while the union before this week asked for 26% over the life of the deal \u2014a substantial gap to bridge.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re trying to put a package together, salaries and benefits and all the other things the players want and deserve, and I want for them to,\u201d Engelbert said Friday night. \u201cI said, I want all these things for the players. … make it a package that meets our objectives of a transformational deal.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the union\u2019s concern, which is certain to come up Saturday, is expenses. The league has offered the players about 70% of net revenue, or revenue before expenses \u2014but it\u2019s those league expenses that have plummeted the players\u2019 gross revenue share down to the undesirable 15% range. The league claims those expenses involve the operation of arenas, practice facilities, charter flights and security, etc., but the WNBPA, sources said, would like to audit those expenses, if for nothing else to gain more trust. The league said it has already been transparent. So that is one of the core differences that needs to be eliminated this weekend.<\/p>\n
On the plus side, a 15-hour negotiation Thursday was followed by a 10 a.m.-to-1 a.m. session Friday\/Saturday, meaning the sides seem open-minded and also cognizant of Monday\u2019s newest deadline. <\/p>\n
\u201cConversations have helped us kind of chip away at what the concerns are for both sides and how we meet them and how we address them,\u201d Jackson said Friday. \u201cWe have been there committed round the clock and speaking very passionately and factually. As long as movement keeps us going in a forward direction, then I think we\u2019re good.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With a new soft deadline of Monday hanging over WNBA collective bargaining, the league and its union pressed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441960,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":["post-536205","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\/536205","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=536205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/536205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=536205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=536205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=536205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}