{"id":450020,"date":"2026-02-05T06:45:12","date_gmt":"2026-02-05T06:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/450020\/"},"modified":"2026-02-05T06:45:12","modified_gmt":"2026-02-05T06:45:12","slug":"unrivaleds-philadelphia-success-gives-players-momentum-in-wnba-cba-talks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/450020\/","title":{"rendered":"Unrivaled\u2019s Philadelphia success gives players momentum in WNBA CBA talks"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unrivaled\u2019s stop in Philadelphia last Friday<\/a> drew an \u201coutpouring of fans and palpable energy,\u201d and if that is \u201cany indication, the players came to the table with momentum\u201d in their ongoing labor dispute with the WNBA, according to Ken Makin of ANDSCAPE. More than 21,000 fans packed Unrivaled\u2019s doubleheader in Philadelphia, which broke attendance records for a regular-season women\u2019s pro basketball game and for Xfinity Mobile Arena. A celebrity row included comedians Wanda Sykes and Leslie Jones, 76ers C Andre Drummond and G Kyle Lowry, and former NFLer Jason Kelce and wife Kylie. But the WNBA labor dispute was an \u201celephant in the room\u201d among the \u201cgoodwill.\u201d The WNBA and WNBPA met Monday<\/a>, \u201ccoming to the bargaining table for the first time since October.\u201d Liberty G Natasha Cloud said, \u201cWe\u2019re not worried as the players, if I\u2019m going to be frank and honest and transparent. … All the power is in our hands\u201d (ANDSCAPE, 2\/3<\/a>).<\/p>\n

WAITING GAME: In N.Y., Madeline Kenney noted six weeks is \u201chow long the WNBA had to come up with a response, or to communicate with\u201d the WNBPA regarding it most recent CBA proposal. That is how long the union has been \u201cwaiting for the league to do something, how long progress on a new deal has been shelved.\u201d The league showed up \u201cempty-handed\u201d for Monday\u2019s meeting in N.Y., a \u201cslap in the face to players and fans.\u201d The WNBA, led by Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, came to the conference room \u201cwithout a response to the union\u2019s proposal that was submitted Christmas morning.\u201d A source said that the league\u2019s move \u201c\u2018set the tone early\u2019 for how the meeting would go.\u201d Kenney noted instead of \u201chammering out details, the two sides spent the bulk of the meeting sharing their reasoning behind the proposal and certain topics.\u201d Each side \u201cleft with an understanding that it\u2019s the league\u2019s turn to put something in writing.\u201d And so \u201clet the waiting game begin \u2026 again.\u201d A source said that the WNBA did not \u201cbelieve the union\u2019s proposal warranted a response because it was \u2018essentially unchanged\u2019 from the previous proposal.\u201d However, sources said that the sentiment was \u201cnever expressed directly to the union at any point leading up to Monday\u2019s meeting\u201d (N.Y. POST, 2\/3<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Unrivaled\u2019s stop in Philadelphia last Friday drew an \u201coutpouring of fans and palpable energy,\u201d and if that is…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450021,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[402,99,18419,434,1765],"class_list":["post-450020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-basketball","tag-sports","tag-unrivaled","tag-wnba","tag-womens-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450020","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=450020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450020\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}