NBA Commissioner Adam Silver again expressed confidence Tuesday that WNBA players and that league will strike a deal on a new collective bargaining agreement, with the current one set to expire on Oct. 31.<\/p>\n
And Silver made clear: WNBA players will be getting \u201cbig\u201d raises.<\/p>\n
Speaking on NBC\u2019s \u201cToday\u201d in advance of Tuesday night\u2019s season-opening NBA doubleheader on that network, Silver responded to a question about whether WNBA players should get a larger share of that league\u2019s revenues.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2018Share\u2019 isn\u2019t the right way to look at it because there\u2019s so much more revenue in the NBA,\u201d Silver said. \u201cI think you should look at it in absolute numbers in terms of what they\u2019re making. And they are going to get a big increase in this cycle of collective bargaining, and they deserve it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Standard base salaries in the WNBA this past season ranged from $66,079 to $249,244, with teams operating under a salary cap of $1,507,100.<\/p>\n
WNBA players want much more in the next CBA. Players at this season\u2019s WNBA All-Star Game warmed up in shirts saying, \u201cPay us what you owe us,\u201d a clear message about how unhappy they are with current salary levels.<\/p>\n
The players exercised their right to opt out of the current CBA last year with hopes of getting, among other things, increased revenue sharing, higher salaries, improved benefits and a softer salary cap.<\/p>\n
The WNBA\u2019s offers to this point have clearly not been to the players\u2019 liking, although it is unclear how far the sides are apart in terms of salary parameters. WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said at this year\u2019s WNBA Finals that the league \u2014 like the players \u2014 wants a \u201ctransformative deal\u201d done with significant increases to salary and benefits.<\/p>\n
Mark Davis, who owns the WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces and is the controlling owner of the NFL\u2019s Las Vegas Raiders, said after the WNBA Finals ended earlier this month that he has confidence the sides will get a deal done.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll get it right,\u201d Davis said. \u201cI don\u2019t think that there\u2019s two sides to this. If we look at it as togetherness and trying to make the future better, I think that\u2019s what we need to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NBA Commissioner Adam Silver again expressed confidence Tuesday that WNBA players and that league will strike a deal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":243215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":{"0":"post-243214","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/243215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=243214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=243214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}