For the first time in months, the WNBA’s leadership met with players in person on Monday afternoon. Front Office Sports reported that the meeting — which lasted over 3 hours — was held so the sides could communicate without having to go through middlemen. Communication and negotiations have been solely through lawyers and paperwork over the past few months. With the season set to tip off on May 8, time is very tight when it comes to getting a new contract in place and being able to prepare to start the season on time.
As reported last week by ESPN, the WNBA hadn’t responded to the players’ latest proposal for over a month. Annie Costabile of FOS reports that the league came into today’s meeting still not having a response to that proposal, but told players today that they will “begin working” on one.
Clearly, this meeting isn’t going to result in a new CBA being signed faster. Not that anyone really expected them to come out today and magically come to terms on a new contract, but hearing that the WNBA hasn’t even started working on a response yet? When training camp is supposed to start in a little over two months? It feels like the TikTok sound — “Do you know you have thirty minutes?? Thirty minutes???“
WNBPA President, Nneka Ogwumike, who was present at the meeting along with other members of the PA’s executive committee, was hoping for a different outcome. She told FOS that she was hoping to hear that the league had a response to that proposal. Fair, given they submitted it six weeks ago.
This was after last week, when she told Breakaway’s own Noa Dalzell that players are not feeling any time crunch on their end that would circumvent their efforts to get the deal they feel they deserve.
“Ideally, this would have gotten done a little bit earlier, but we want a good deal, rather than one that’s done in a fashion that suits a schedule,” Ogwumike told Breakaway then. “And so we’re looking forward to being able to come out of this proud of what we’ve negotiated, proud of the process, while also looking forward to having a season. Our players want to play, we want to play, but we also want to be valued on the court — and that’s something that we’re negotiating for today.”
The two sides still appear to be far apart on most negotiation points. The latest WNBA proposal, for example, included a max salary of $1.3 million and revenue sharing on net income. The players’ response to that was to have the team salary cap raised to $10.5 million, and to base the revenue-sharing program on gross income, not net. Per FOS, the points of salary, revenue sharing, housing, retirement benefits and what they call “professional standards” are the players’ top priorities. Those professional standards include things like team facility standards and staffing requirements.
With several WNBA executives and team owners in attendance, as well as over 40 WNBA players joining via zoom, it didn’t seem like much was actually accomplished in the meeting. It was the first time an in-person meeting had been held since the WNBA Finals were wrapping up in October.
Ogwumike and Alysha Clark (Vice President of the players’ union) told FOS they felt a lack of urgency from the league today. With it now being February, and the WNBA going full speed ahead with announcing the season schedule and preparing to start the season on May 8, urgency is starting to feel necessary.
The looming question is now the idea of the players striking. Clark told FOS that doing so is “still on the table” after today’s meeting, but there are still several things that would need to happen before they even get to that. It seems like the players will wait for the league’s latest response — whenever that comes — to start discussing strike possibilities.
And if the league has any intention of starting the season when it said it was going to, its lawyers and commissioner should probably get on that.
