The WNBPA's leap of faith in WNBA CBA negotiations

Jeremy Beren

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The WNBPA's leap of faith in WNBA CBA negotiations image

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More than a year after it opted out of the collective bargaining agreement, the Women's National Basketball Players Association is not significantly closer to signing off on a new CBA.

Negotiations with the WNBA have not proven fruitful to this point, and both sides faced an inflection point on Sunday: the imminent expiration of the CBA, following a mutually-agreed 30-day extension of the 2020 CBA.

The sticking point continues to be the WNBPA's demand for player salaries -- and, by proxy, the salary cap -- to grow in tandem with the WNBA as a business. It is a model that for years has been used in the NBA, whose commissioner, Adam Silver, is WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert's boss.

Will an agreement happen in the next 40 days?

Shortly before the midnight deadline on Sunday, the WNBA and the WNBPA announced another extension amid their CBA talks.

The sides have agreed to extend the window through the rest of 2025 and into the second week of January, a 40-day period ending Jan. 9.

The WNBPA's statement prior to the extension confirmation laid bare its efforts to gain leverage and the upper hand in negotiations.

"We expect substantive movement from the league within this window," the WNBPA's official statement read, as it initially proposed a six-week extension of the CBA.

The WNBA's most recent reported offer made headlines with a supermax salary north of $1.1 million. But the players' union was unmoved by the offer as it did not contain a large enough revenue-sharing component.

With the 2026 league calendar already affected -- the expansion draft and free agency start dates remain unknown -- the new 40-day extension could prove decisive not only in these labor negotiations, but in the future of the WNBA on the whole.

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Editorial Team