A decisive week begins in the WNBA. Over the next two days, representatives of the league and the WNBPA are expected to meet in hopes of coming to an understanding over a new collective bargaining agreement.
The sides can agree on an extension to continue talks past the Oct. 31 deadline...or a work stoppage would begin, throwing the league calendar into chaos as expansion teams in Portland and Toronto prepare to join.
Sources close to the player's union told Sports Business Journal that there is "curiosity" over the role that WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert is poised to play in the days before the CBA expires.
This curiosity comes amid the embattled Engelbert's seeming disappearance from negotiations last week, which a WNBA spokesperson attributed to "league business."
Still, there is no avoiding the fact that Engelbert has not yet been able to repair her relationships with executive committee members of the WNBPA -- especially Napheesa Collier, the Minnesota Lynx superstar who called out Engelbert's leadership last month following the Lynx's elimination from the WNBA playoffs.
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And Engelbert is not much closer to striking an agreement that goes some way toward satisfying the players' demands for increased salaries. Engelbert's boss, NBA commissioner Adam Silver, has promised players' pay will go up in accordance with the WNBA's exponential growth this decade, but the players' union has taken aim at Silver for his refusal to use the word "share" when discussing Basketball Related Income.
The players believe that the league's revenue-sharing proposal is "based on incremental growth from league business only," something the league denied in a statement last week.
Despite the posturing, the SBJ report says there has been "some microscopic movement" in bargaining sessions this month, and "even the slightest bit of momentum" could see the sides opt to extend the current CBA.
That would allow them to continue negotiating, in hopes that a deal is reached by the end of the year; the expansion teams would get to draft their players, and no league games would be cancelled.
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