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Alysha Clark on a floor blanket in between CBA talks that stretched into the morning hours. WNBPA <\/p>\nNothing good happens after midnight \u2014 except for the eight days that saved the WNBA season. <\/p>\n
The clocks would strike 1 a.m., 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., with WNBPA Executive Director Terri Carmichael Jackson sipping green peppermint tea and WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert hydrating with water, and there was no end in sight due to this thing called revenue share or this other thing called housing or this other thing called stubbornness.<\/p>\n
There were eight days of give and take and take and give \u2014 from Tuesday, March 10, through Wednesday, March 18 \u2014 and when it appeared both sides would never get to the magic revenue share number of 20%, the union was convinced the league thought: \u201cThe players are going to cave.\u201d <\/p>\n
But somewhere around the Ides of March, in the middle of the night at a lush New York hotel called The Langham, 13-year pro and WNBPA Vice President Alysha Clark laughed all of that off. She looked over at the players doing yoga or crashing out on the floor with blankets \u2014 her being one of them \u2014 and said, \u201cDo they really think they\u2019re going to outlast an endurance athlete? This is what we do.\u201d<\/p>\n
So the stalemate was on. It should be a \u201c30 for 30.\u201d<\/p>\n
In November, when the union was asking for 40% of league and team revenue and the league was dug in below 15%, Engelbert received a notice in the mail \u2014 for jury duty.<\/p>\n
She didn\u2019t mind it, actually. The commissioner considered it \u201cpart of my civic duty\u201d and was prepared to check in at the courthouse \u2014 until the league\u2019s lawyers told her no.<\/p>\n
At the time, collective-bargaining tensions were palpable. The previous CBA had expired on Halloween, and there were labor talks during an ensuing 30-day extension period. The union was perturbed that the league would negotiate only in hour-and-a-half or two-hour pockets \u2014 \u201cWhat if we wanted to keep going?!\u201d Jackson says \u2014 and it would\u2019ve been horrible timing if Engelbert was suddenly nowhere to be found, if she was in some New York-area courtroom listening to a random petty theft trial.<\/p>\n
So, of course, her lawyers told her not to go. Engelbert requested a deferral and was fortunately given a new jury duty date, far, far, far down the road: March 16, 2026.<\/p>\n
She\u2019d certainly be free by then. Right?<\/p>\n
November, December, January and most of February came and went \u2014 with no deal. You could have counted the issues on 10 hands, but the two core disagreements that would turn March into madness were revenue share and housing. One of them about math, the other about heart.<\/p>\n
By late February, lines were being drawn in the sand or being blurred, depending what side of the table you were on. On or around Feb. 21, the league and the union had a rare in-person bargaining session with several players sitting in \u2014 such as Clark, WNBPA President Nneka Ogwumike and WNBPA Treasurer Brianna Turner \u2014 plus countless others on Zoom. But the league didn\u2019t have them at hello.<\/p>\n
Right off the bat, the WNBA placed a calendar on a screen that had the players seething. In a nutshell, the league was telling the union that if no verbal agreement was reached by March 10, the 2026 season schedule would be affected. Did that mean, if no handshake by then, the season wouldn\u2019t start on time? Did it mean the union had to get on board or get locked out? Was it daring the players to strike?<\/p>\n
With the clock ticking, the league certainly had, among other things, tickets to sell and sponsorship deals to close. It saw that March 10 deadline as necessary, while the union saw it as another \u201cscare tactic\u201d after previous nebulous deadline threats in December and January \u2013 and especially after the league had ignored the union\u2019s December request for a 30% revenue share for six weeks.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd so they opened that meeting with these dates, with this calendar that we\u2019d never seen before, we\u2019d never discussed,\u201d Jackson says now. \u201cVery off-putting, is one word. It was very frustrating because we\u2019ve come in for a bargaining session and they\u2019ve looked to start it with how to apply pressure very, very swiftly with a full audience of players.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kelsey Plum and Breanna Stewart were two of those players. But which side were they on?<\/p>\n
March was finally here, and so was an ESPN report that Plum and Stewart (a vice president of the union) were essentially trying to submarine the WNBPA. Included in their three-page letter to Jackson was the insinuation that the union was freezing players out of the negotiations, with the accusatory statement, \u201cWe do not feel like we have an adequate seat at the table.\u201d The letter was supposed to have been private.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou know what it was,\u201d Jackson says now, the implication being that Plum\u2019s and Stewart\u2019s agents orchestrated and leaked the supposed coup. Jackson and her team felt the agents wanted no part of a strike and that the league was working in concert with the agents to break the union. Engelbert and her staff didn\u2019t dignify it with a response, but it reinforces how much trust there was then: Zero.<\/p>\n
Still, the next 24 to 48 hours was a breakthrough of sorts, according to Michael Goldsholl, the union\u2019s senior vice president for business and legal affairs, the kind of breakthrough that labor lawyers are dying to hear. After Jackson, Goldsholl and Erin Drake, WNBPA senior adviser and legal counsel, defused the so-called rift \u2014 with a joint statement of solidarity from Plum, Stewart and the executive committee \u2014 the results of a player survey came tumbling in. The union had already dropped its revenue share request from 30% to 27.5% to 26%, and a crucial survey question was whether to accept the league\u2019s seeming non-negotiable offer of just less than 15%. <\/p>\n
\u201cThat survey said the 15% \u2014 or the not even 15% \u2014 was unacceptable,” Jackson says now. \u201cIt was a resounding: \u2018There\u2019s no way we\u2019re taking this offer.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Goldsholl put it this way: \u201cI would say we had a mandate to get at least 20%. That was the mandate: 20%. At least.\u201d <\/p>\n
In other words, see you March 10.<\/p>\n
So it was all set. The league and the union would meet at The Langham on Fifth Avenue, where \u2014 on the right day \u2014 you can get a room with a king-sized bed for $1,600 and change. But on March 10, the negotiators didn\u2019t need beds; they needed a large conference room and two adjacent breakout rooms. The listed price online? $2,000 to $5,000 a day. <\/p>\n
The key leaders on each side walked in that day around 5 p.m. For the league, it was Engelbert; WNBA general counsel Jamin Dershowitz; Dan Rube, NBA executive vice president and deputy general counsel; Jachele V\u00e9lez, WNBA deputy general counsel; and Bethany Donaphin, WNBA head of league operations. For the union, it was Jackson, Goldsholl, Drake, SVP of Player Relations Jayne Appel-Marinelli and an advisory committee consisting of Deb Willig, managing partner of Willig, Williams and Davidson; sports and entertainment executive Tag Garson; and communications specialist and NYU professor David Cooper. Members of the WNBPA\u2019s Executive Committee \u2014 Clark, Turner, Ogwumike and Stewart \u2014 would make a grand entrance, after getting in their workouts. <\/p>\n
Alysha Clark on a floor blanket in between CBA talks that stretched into the morning hours. WNBPA <\/p>\n
They settled in for the short haul, not knowing it would be the long haul. The first day of talks went an interminable 11 hours, with Jackson exiting at around 4 a.m. and Engelbert around dawn at 5 a.m. That was just Day 1.<\/p>\n
By this point, Engelbert \u2014 whose jury duty date was only days away on March 16 \u2014 had already requested another deferral, only this time she says the courthouse \u201conly gave me a week,\u201d meaning she had to show up in court, no ifs and buts, on Monday, March 23.<\/p>\n
No problem, right? Wrong. The \u201celephant in the room,\u201d as Drake puts it, was revenue share, but Engelbert says now there were more than 50 issues to negotiate, which began a week straight of days into nights and nights into dawn. \u201cI think what was underestimated was the number of issues,\u201d Engelbert says. \u201cEveryone thought there was one. And I really think the players thought there was only one.\u201d<\/p>\n
That one sensitive, make-or-break, die-on-the-vine player issue was housing. Don\u2019t be mistaken: Ogwumike was still savvy enough to be telling everyone \u201cthe big thing\u2019s the big thing,\u201d meaning revenue share. But the WNBA\u2019s early decision to eliminate league-sanctioned housing \u2014 then only bending to allow it for first-year players \u2014 was the sore spot, whether Engelbert and her lawyers realized it yet. And during those first three days at The Langham, from March 10 through 12, housing wasn\u2019t front and center yet. There was 401(k), retirement, health benefits, on and on and on.<\/p>\n
So the players had to hurry up and wait.<\/p>\n
\u201cStewie quipped in a fun way: \u2018Now I know what I don\u2019t want to do after basketball,\u2019\u201d Engelbert says. \u201c\u2018Become a lawyer.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Everyone had a story about the all-nighters, the eight straight days of them. The union would send out for ice cream in the wee hours, and it would arrive with the security guards asleep on their chairs. The league ordered ice cream, too \u2014 but not necessarily coffee ice cream. Engelbert doesn\u2019t do caffeine.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never had a cup of coffee in my life,\u201d she says. \u201cWater, water. People think I\u2019m crazy, but water.\u201d<\/p>\n
She says she\u2019s known for \u201cnot needing a lot of sleep,\u201d and that obviously came in handy when she was calling or texting team owners across the country with 4:30 a.m. updates.<\/p>\n
\u201cAdrenaline\u2019s a powerful thing, thankfully,\u201d Engelbert says. \u201cEveryone says you\u2019ll sleep when you\u2019re dead \u2014 we just didn\u2019t want to die doing it.”<\/p>\n
Across the room, Jackson says she\u2019d given up coffee for Lent but was rescued by The Langham\u2019s \u201cgreat teas\u201d \u2014 specifically the green peppermint. She would get a ride home generally about 3 a.m., sometimes later, and says, \u201cAccording to my sleep app, I averaged four hours.\u201d <\/p>\n
Goldsholl says he averaged maybe two, because, just like Drake, his mind would be spinning with numbers and brainstorms and rebuttals. In some absurd way, the fatigue was exorcised from their bodies, with Drake saying, \u201cWe were in a vortex. I truly felt like we were in a little world all with each other. And that came with understanding the way that people are at 3 in the morning, the way people are at 10 in the morning, at 7 in the morning. What people like to eat, just the familiarity and the closeness, the proximity \u2026 I think I felt very vulnerable in that space.\u201d<\/p>\n
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Ice cream became a small reward as days turned into nights. Late runs to nearby convenience stores meant plenty of H\u00e4agen-Dazs, shared among players, union staff and league officials. WNBPA <\/p>\n
Drake described it as \u201cjust a level of care,\u201d with people making runs to CVS for toothpaste or peanut M&M\u2019s. It was the perfect time to be in the city that never sleeps, because they weren\u2019t sleeping, either. They would DoorDash Chinese or Brazilian food at 11 p.m., from restaurants such as Cocina Del Sur, Wolfnights and Din Tai Fung. <\/p>\n
But for the music, they had Clark\u2019s playlist to thank. While reviewing documents, they\u2019d listen to Stevie Wonder, Alicia Keys, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Earth, Wind and Fire, Rufus \u2014 all courtesy of Clark. Those players were waiting for a deal, waiting for their million-dollar salaries, sleeping on Langham hotel floor blankets. They played pop-a-shot when the sessions moved to league headquarters over the weekend and ping-pong when talks shifted to union headquarters. They walked around with Excel spreadsheets. They cheered out loud on Sunday night, March 15, crowding around Clark\u2019s laptop, when Michael B. Jordan won an Oscar for \u201cSinners.\u201d And they waited and waited for housing, with an entire player membership in mind. <\/p>\n
And when it came time, Brianna Turner was ready.<\/p>\n
The sides were inching closer to a deal on that weekend of March 14-15, after Engelbert and the league drew up a T-account (a method perhaps from her Deloitte days) to give everyone a \u201cyou give, you get\u201d mentality. They were chipping away. Next up was housing.<\/p>\n
The league argument had always been: The max salary is going to be over a million, the average salary is going be over 500,000 \u2014 you can pay your own rent now. But Turner\u2019s mic-drop moment was when she said: \u201cWhat about 2028?\u201d<\/p>\n
Following a silent beat, a league official asked, \u201cWhat do you mean?\u201d And then she started in on it \u2014 that 2028 was an Olympic year and housing would be scarce and overpriced in L.A. that summer. How would the Sparks players cope? How would players find affordable short-team leases? Turner, whose nickname inside the union was suitably \u201cHidden Figures,\u201d also mentioned that the league\u2019s new minimum salary at that time of negotiations was below last year\u2019s max of $249,000. She said if max players last year got housing at $249K, why not now? The league had no response.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe annihilated it,\u201d Drake says. \u201cIt disabused them of all of the assumptions they were making.\u201d<\/p>\n
![\"NA\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/42UORXEJO5FSJJPK34OSW6N5MY.JPEG\")
Michael Goldsholl and Erin Drake (foreground) prep for negotiations at The Langham on March 11 as Executive Committee members (from left) Breanna Stewart, Nneka Ogwumike, Alysha Clark and Brianna Turner speak to other members on the phone. WNBPA <\/p>\n
Engelbert admits now she had no idea how \u201cemotional\u201d housing was to the players, and Donaphin isn\u2019t afraid to say Turner \u201cwas compelling\u201d because she passionately represented the middle-class players. To Engelbert\u2019s credit, the league gave back housing for the first three years of the deal, and, for players making less than $500,000, future years, as well.<\/p>\n
The two sides were perhaps in the home stretch on March 16, as the big thing \u2014 revenue share \u2014 finally became the big thing. The league had been holding firm at about 15%, because if they\u2019d agreed to the union\u2019s original 40% request, they calculated over $2 billion worth of losses over six years. At 30%, the losses would have been $660 million, and at 27.5%, $460 million. They weren\u2019t budging.<\/p>\n
But the union, adhering to the player survey\u2019s mandate, wasn\u2019t blinking, either. As negotiations reconvened at The Langham on St. Patrick\u2019s Day, after more than 100 hours of talks and a sense the 20% number was attainable, there was hope, doom, hope, doom \u2014 but also enough of a glimmer that two league staffers borrowed one of the WNBA board of governors\u2019 cars and drove up and down 5th Avenue to find an open liquor store. To buy champagne.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d Englebert says. \u201cYou\u2019d feel really good at one point in the day and then five hours later you\u2019d be like, \u2018We\u2019re never getting a deal done and we\u2019re going to have to cancel games.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Finally, at 2 a.m., on March 18, with just one salary cap issue unresolved, the league walked in to tell Jackson, \u201cAll right, we\u2019ll do it on your terms.\u201d Jackson blurted, \u201cHold it\u201d \u2014 and hustled to find the players in their side room, where Clark and Stewie, Ogwumike and Turner were on blankets closing their eyes or talking to family. It was all officially done now, at 2:22 a.m. Empty cartons of H\u00e4agen-Dazs were everywhere. Engelbert remembers hugging players. Jackson remembers toasts but isn\u2019t so sure about the hugging. <\/p>\n
The champagne popping probably woke up the security guards.<\/p>\n
Everyone has a story. V\u00e9lez, who\u2019s getting married in May, was able to make it to her bachelorette party in New Orleans the following week. She also says she exited The Langham with a memento: a champagne cork.<\/p>\n
Her colleague Donaphin took a pen — \u201cI won\u2019t ever write with it again,\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019m just going to always hold onto it\u201d — and Goldsholl grabbed a pen himself, though he definitely writes with his.<\/p>\n
Jackson walked away with some of Langham\u2019s green peppermint tea and engraved Langham notepads \u2014 her notes from the most historic and transformative CBA deal in women\u2019s sports scribbled all over them.<\/p>\n
Drake left thinking they\u2019d taken down Goliath and says those eight days in March are \u201csomething I\u2019m never going to forget and probably won\u2019t ever stop talking about \u2014 because it was so intense and so beautiful. But also so hard in all the ways that make something that makes history totally worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n
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WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert navigated the negotiations, and even a summons to report for jury duty, to reach a deal with the players. Getty Images <\/p>\n
Engelbert? She pilfered some Langham paper herself \u2026 and then showed up at jury duty the following Monday. The court had no idea she was commissioner of the WNBA, fresh off of a sleepless marathon \u2014 and she didn\u2019t tell them. They excused her, by the way.<\/p>\n
It was the time of their lives. But had it dragged on nine nights, 10 nights, 11 nights, 12 nights, 20 nights, it might\u2019ve been the worst time of their lives. Engelbert \u2014 thrilled that the WNBA\u2019s 30th season is starting on time \u2014 chuckled and didn\u2019t answer when asked how close they all came to a work stoppage.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat,\u201d she says, \u201cwill be part of the \u201830 for 30.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nothing good happens after midnight \u2014 except for the eight days that saved the WNBA season. The clocks…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":441888,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":["post-637458","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\/637458","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=637458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/441888"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}