NEW YORK — The WNBA and the union for the league’s players will not agree to another collective bargaining agreement extension after the current deadline passes Friday night, WNBPA vice president Breanna Stewart said.
However, that does not mean players will strike or the league will lock them out. Stewart, who was the No. 1 pick of the 2016 draft and has spent the past three seasons with the New York Liberty, told reporters Thursday that players would continue to negotiate in good faith.
Stewart spoke at a practice for the Mist BC, the team she captains in Unrivaled, a 3-on-3 league she co-founded with fellow power forward Napheesa Collier, who has played for the Minnesota Lynx throughout a WNBA career that began in 2019. Unrivaled, which is based in South Florida, is in its second season this winter and does not overlap with the WNBA calendar.
With the latest deadline for WNBA labor talks set for 11:59 p.m. Eastern on Friday, the league wouldn’t confirm Thursday that the two sides won’t reach an extension. A WNBA spokesman did say the league would “continue to negotiate in good faith with the goal of reaching a deal as quickly as possible.”
“Our focus remains on reaching an agreement that significantly increases player compensation while ensuring the long-term growth of the business,” a league spokesperson said.
The league and the players have had two previous extensions and have met several times this week. Any stalled negotiations could delay the start of the 2026 season. The last CBA was announced in mid-January 2020, a month after it had been agreed to.
It could easily take two months from when a new CBA is reached to get to the start of free agency, which was supposed to begin later this month. While a strike or lockout isn’t imminent, both sides could change their viewpoints.
Stewart said calling a strike is “not something that we’re going to do right this second, but we have that in our back pocket.” The league hasn’t been considering a lockout, according to a person familiar with the decision. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Thursday because of the sensitive nature of the negotiations.
The sides remain far apart on many key issues, including salary and revenue sharing, and it seems unlikely a deal could have been reached before Friday’s deadline.
The league’s most recent offer last month would guarantee a maximum base salary of $1 million in 2026 that could reach $1.3 million through revenue sharing. That’s up from the current $249,000 and could grow to nearly $2 million over the life of the agreement, a person with knowledge of the negotiations told the AP. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the negotiations.
Under the league’s proposal, players would receive in excess of 70% of net revenue — though that would be their take of the profits after expenses are paid. Those expenses would include upgraded facilities, charter flights, five-star hotels, medical services, security and arenas.
The average salary in 2026 would be more than $530,000, up from its current $120,000, and grow to more than $770,000 over the life of the agreement. The minimum salary would grow from its current $67,000 to more than $250,000 in the first year, the person told the AP.
The proposal would also financially pay young WNBA stars such as Paige Bueckers, Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, who are all still on their rookie contracts, nearly double the league minimum.
Revenue sharing is another of the major sticking points in the negotiations.
The union’s counterproposal to the league would give players close to 30% of the gross revenue. The player’s percentage would be from money generated before expenses for the first year, and teams would have a $10.5 million salary cap to sign players. Under the union’s proposal, the percentage of revenue sharing would go up slightly each year.
The union feels the $750 million in expansion fees the league just received with the addition of Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia as expansion franchises by 2030 should be considered revenue and included in projections. The league says that the money actually goes to all the current teams that were in place before expansion to make up for the future money they’ll be losing by dividing the total revenue by more franchises.
Other major sports leagues, including the NBA, NFL and NHL, don’t include expansion fees in their revenue-sharing structures. Major League Baseball’s salary structure is not tied to its revenue, so expansion fees don’t matter.
The league has also proposed making players pay for their housing instead of having teams continue to incur the costs. With the potential new minimum salary more than $250,000, the WNBA has said that like most every other pro league, players should pay for their own housing.
The union’s stance is that teams should continue to pay for players’ housing.
An extended delay in getting a deal done could cause a number of problems, specifically getting the 2026 season started on time or even played for several reasons.
With nearly all the veteran players considered free agents this offseason, this will be the biggest year in the league’s history as far as potential movement. Free agency was supposed to start later this month. However, once a new CBA is reached, it could take both parties two months to get free agency started.
The release of the schedule has been delayed because of the lack of a new CBA. In the past, the league has tried to get it out before Christmas so teams can sell tickets. With so many players potentially changing teams as free agents, new merchandise wouldn’t be able to be sold.
And with teams in Portland, Oregon (Fire) and Toronto (Tempo) entering the league this year, an expansion draft has to be held for the two franchises. The addition of the Golden State Valkyries for the 2025 season pushed the WNBA’s number of teams to 13, and an expansion draft was held in December 2024.
Current teams need to figure out who they will be protecting from being selected in the next expansion draft, and that is made more complicated due to all the free agents.
Still ahead after that would be the annual first-year player draft, typically held in mid-April after the NCAA Division I women’s basketball tournament wraps up.