WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said there is urgency to get a new collective bargaining agreement completed by Monday to avoid \u201cdisrupting\u201d key dates on the calendar.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to get it \u200bdone by Monday. I should say, we have to get \u200cit done without disrupting some part of the fact that we\u2019ve got to run this two-team expansion (draft),\u201d Engelbert told reporters on Friday. \u201cWe\u2019ve got to get expansion going. We\u2019ve got to get free agency going. We\u2019ve got to get the college \u200cdraft, \u200bwhich is now a month from today.\u201d<\/p>\n
The \u2060league and union have been \u2060holding sessions that spanned double-digit hour totals each day starting Tuesday. Front Office Sports reported Friday that the sides met in a Manhattan hotel until close to 3 a.m. that morning, for \u200ba total of 16 hours.<\/p>\n
League officials had set March 10 as the deadline for a new CBA agreement to avoid the loss \u2060of regular-season games. The 2026 WNBA Draft \u2060is scheduled for April 13, training camps are slated \u200bto begin on April 19 and the regular season is in line \u200bto open on May 8.<\/p>\n
The league and the players have \u200cbeen at a standstill for months, with revenue sharing, a revised salary cap and housing among the key issues.<\/p>\n
Terri Carmichael Jackson, the Women\u2019s National Basketball Players Association executive director, reiterated Friday that a system \u201ctied \u2060to revenue in a meaningful way\u201d remains a priority for players and said there has been progress during these negotiations.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the league, and particularly \u2060the commissioner and her \u200cteam, have heard that transformational remains the goal,\u201d \u2060Jackson told reporters Friday. \u201cAs long as movement keeps \u200bus going \u200cin a forward direction, then I think we\u2019re \u200bgood.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nneka Ogwumike, \u2060the president of the Women\u2019s National Basketball Players Association executive committee, Breanna Stewart, Brianna Turner, Alysha Clark and Carmichael Jackson represent the union. The league has been represented by Engelbert, head of league operations Bethany Donaphin, New York Liberty owner Clara Wu Tsai, and Connecticut Sun president Jennifer \u200bRizzotti.<\/p>\n
\u2013Field Level Media<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said there is urgency to get a new collective bargaining agreement completed by Monday…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":537458,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":["post-537457","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\/537457","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=537457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/537457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/537458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=537457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=537457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=537457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}