More than 70 elected officials from around the U.S., including New York City Democrat mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, sent a letter to WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert and NBA commissioner Adam Silver on Friday, urging the league \u201cto bargain in good faith to reach a fair (Collective Bargaining Agreement) in a timely manner\u201d before the Oct. 31 deadline.<\/p>\n
The letter from legislators, who govern in proximity to seven WNBA markets and include a mix of mayors, council members and assembly members like Mamdani, comes at a critical moment in the discussions between the league and the Women\u2019s National Basketball Players Association. The two sides remain divided on key issues as the current CBA nears its expiration date and tensions are high, evidenced most recently by WNBPA executive director Terri Jackson issuing a rebuke of a comment by Silver.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all want to be able to take in a full season, but we know that they deserve to get paid what they deserve to earn,\u201d said New York City council member Tiffany Cab\u00e1n, who led the organizing effort and has been a New York Liberty fan since the franchise\u2019s inception in 1997. \u201cIt mirrors the fights that everyday working-class women are having every day when they\u2019re saying to their bosses: \u2018We need childcare. We need good health benefits. We need an environment that allows us to be present with our loved ones and values the labor that allows you all to make as much money as you do.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
The legislators write in the letter, \u201cThis new CBA deal is an opportunity to set the record straight that women are valuable workers who deserve to be paid accordingly and treated fairly.\u201d<\/p>\n
The letter reflects the continued growing spotlight on the WNBA, especially as a potential labor impasse approaches and the wedge issues of revenue sharing and salary remaining unresolved. The league said, via a spokesperson, that it has made proposals with significant increases in salary \u201cthat will benefit all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Interest in the WNBA CBA negotiations has been bubbling the last four months.<\/p>\n
Google search data shows that queries for \u201cWNBA CBA\u201d peaked in mid-July, when at the All-Star Game in Indianapolis, players wore T-shirts in warmups with \u201cPay Us What You Owe Us\u201d printed on them. While interest subsequently subsided, searches for the term \u201cWNBA CBA\u201d again surged after Minnesota Lynx star Napheesa Collier lambasted Engelbert\u2019s leadership at the end of September. It has remained a topic of interest, experiencing a slight uptick this week, according to Google search data.<\/p>\n
The talks\u2019 key principals have also been the focus of newfound attention, as searches for Engelbert this month have been around 10 times as frequent as they were a year ago at this time, per Google search data, and around 20 times more than when she was hired in May 2019. Google search data for Collier also peaked in early October.<\/p>\n
The letter also reflects a political faction engaging with the issue largely for the first time, but other groups have been tuned in to the CBA discussions.<\/p>\n
Players Association representatives have been in contact with other unions for multiple years, sharing information about what their core issues are with the current CBA structure, while also explaining the systems underlying their frustrations.<\/p>\n
In September 2024, the Washington Labor Council AFL-CIO published a resolution in support of Seattle Storm players in the contract talks, becoming the first AFL-CIO chapter to voice its support for the WNBPA in the negotiations. Eighty-five lawmakers from the Democratic Women\u2019s Caucus and the House Democratic Caucus sent an open letter to Engelbert this summer, demanding the league \u201cbargain in good faith.\u201d Jackson was also a co-grand marshal of the New York City Labor Day Parade, which gathered members from more than 200 unions and constituency groups.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe league jeopardizing the start of the 2026 season, it\u2019s not just basketball, it\u2019s not just the players who would feel that,\u201d said Erin Drake, WNBPA senior advisor and legal counsel. \u201cIt\u2019s their constituents too. I think people feel that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The WNBA has disputed the characterization by the WNBPA that it\u2019s trying to run out the clock in the negotiations.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is frustrating and counterproductive for the union to be making misrepresentations about our proposals while also accusing the league of engaging in delay. That is simply not true,\u201d a WNBA spokesperson said in a statement this week. \u201cWe stand ready to continue negotiating in good faith and hope they will do the same so that we can finalize a mutually beneficial new CBA as quickly as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n
As The Athletic previously reported, the league is proposing a revenue-sharing system similar in structure to what is currently in their CBA, in which there is a fixed salary cap and additional revenue sharing only if league revenue exceeds certain targets. The WNBPA, meanwhile, proposed a salary framework tied to the WNBA business, in which player salaries are linked to a percentage of the revenue generated by the league. Both plans include a substantial salary increase for players.<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s letter is Mamdani\u2019s latest foray into the sports space, as he has been outspoken in recent weeks about FIFA\u2019s dynamic ticket pricing policy for the men\u2019s World Cup in the U.S., Canada and Mexico in June and July. In September, he launched a \u201cGame Over Greed\u201d petition, calling on soccer\u2019s world governing body to set aside 15 percent of tickets for local residents at a discount and to reinstate a cap on ticket resales for the tournament.<\/p>\n
Players see the continued calls for changes in their working conditions as a continuation of their activism, which included campaigning for Raphael Warnock when he ran for the U.S. Senate as a Democrat from Georgia and raising awareness for victims of police brutality and racial violence in the aftermath of Breonna Taylor\u2019s death in 2020.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t care when you got in this fight, I just care that you\u2019re here,\u201d Cab\u00e1n said. \u201cAs there\u2019s more energy and attention being put on this WNBA negotiation, you\u2019re going to see more people join the fight and that\u2019s exactly what we want.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat I hope is that the message is heard.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than 70 elected officials from around the U.S., including New York City Democrat mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani,…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":350127,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[1503,1497,2472,2470,2473,234,4144,1488,1519,1520,1502,1494,62,222,67,132,68,1514,232],"class_list":{"0":"post-350126","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-atlanta-dream","9":"tag-chicago-sky","10":"tag-connecticut-sun","11":"tag-dallas-wings","12":"tag-golden-state-valkyries","13":"tag-indiana-fever","14":"tag-las-vegas-aces","15":"tag-los-angeles-sparks","16":"tag-minnesota-lynx","17":"tag-new-york-liberty","18":"tag-phoenix-mercury","19":"tag-seattle-storm","20":"tag-sports","21":"tag-sports-business","22":"tag-united-states","23":"tag-unitedstates","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-washington-mystics","26":"tag-wnba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115479675339678916","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=350126"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/350126\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/350127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=350126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=350126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=350126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}