The Girls’s Nationwide Basketball Affiliation (WNBA) is hurtling towards a possible lockout or strike with pay talks deadlocked forward of Sunday’s deadline over the gamers’ push for a much bigger share of the league’s explosive development in income.
The present Collective Bargaining Settlement (CBA) was as a consequence of expire on October 31, however has been prolonged to November 30. Nonetheless, a deal seems more and more unlikely, elevating the prospect of a piece stoppage that would disrupt the 2026 season.
“They’ll most likely do one other extension, but if we get to the New 12 months with out an settlement a strike turns into a sensible possibility,” Daniel Kelly II, an affiliate dean and professor at New York College who focuses on sports activities legislation, stated in an interview on Wednesday.
“Traditionally, that has led to the most effective deal for gamers. For the NBA, the 50–50 deal got here after the strike in 2011–12. It nearly looks as if you must push to the sting to get the deal you need,” he added.
In keeping with native media reviews, the league has proposed growing the utmost wage from $250,000 to $1.1 million, elevating the typical participant wage to greater than $460,000 and growing the minimal wage to $220,000.
Nonetheless, WNBA gamers need extra than simply wage will increase. They consider they need to observe the NBA’s path, which started with their first CBA in 1970 and by 2011 had negotiated a 50-50 break up of basketball-related earnings.
“Gamers are pushing for revenue-sharing preparations much like these in males’s skilled leagues, somewhat than mounted wage will increase that don’t maintain tempo with the WNBA’s development in media offers and staff valuations,” Kelly stated. “The enterprise is rising exponentially, but they need the gamers’ salaries to extend at a set quantity.”
Complicated possession and rival leagues add stress
The possession construction provides a layer of complexity to the dialogue. The NBA itself owns 42 per cent of the WNBA, whereas staff house owners maintain one other 42 per cent, and a personal fairness group controls the remaining 16 per cent.
“Because the WNBA’s commissioner, Cathy Engelbert represents three teams. She has a number of stakeholders to reply to in several capacities when negotiating in opposition to the gamers’ union,” Kelly stated, noting that it makes negotiations far harder than easy two-party bargaining.
Rival leagues dangling eye-popping pay cheques additional complicate issues. Unrivalled, a 3-on-3 basketball league which started its first season in January, reported a mean wage of $222,222, which included facilities equivalent to on-site childcare.
Much more threatening is Challenge B, which plans to launch subsequent fall with males’s and girls’s 5-on-5 basketball and is reportedly providing salaries as much as $2 million. It has signed WNBA gamers union (WNBPA) president Nneka Ogwumike, together with large names like Alyssa Thomas and Sophie Cunningham.
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“Do we all know if these new leagues can maintain these salaries? We don’t as a result of they haven’t been round for a number of seasons. Nonetheless, it provides gamers leverage to say to the league: You’re not the one possibility,” Kelly added.
He really useful a hybrid mannequin that maintains minimal and most salaries however contains assured revenue-sharing percentages that develop with the enterprise.
“Gamers search for readability, and the league wants to indicate them the long-term plan, the chances of the way you get to 50-50, even when it’s 20 years from now,” he stated.
With the clock ticking towards Sunday’s deadline, either side face a vital determination: compromise now, or danger a piece stoppage that would undermine their hard-won momentum.
Revealed on Nov 30, 2025