second extension to its deadline<\/a>. The league presented its latest proposal last weekend, and the union countered with its proposal on Tuesday evening. The two sides are scheduled to meet again this week. Even with the league and union agreeing to extend the expiration of the current CBA to Jan. 9, sources have said \u201csignificant gaps\u201d remain in negotiations. A hang-up persists regarding what makes up the segment of league revenue that will be shareable with the players, and what percentage is shared.<\/p>\n\u201cI don\u2019t feel like there\u2019s any cultivation of a culture of trust,\u201d WNBPA president Nneka Ogwumike, a 14-year veteran who plays for the Seattle Storm, told The Athletic on Wednesday. \u201cWe don\u2019t feel valued in these talks as they stand today. \u2026 I feel like we\u2019ve been heard, but not listened to. And I\u2019m hoping that that changes in this 40-day extension, because what we want to do is get a good deal done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Though discussions around a new CBA have primarily focused on the salary system, other matters have been addressed in proposals exchanged between the league and the players\u2019 union. Here is the state of the talks on some other critical topics:<\/p>\n
Draft combine<\/p>\n
The WNBA has proposed holding a draft combine in the offseason. To be eligible for the draft, invited players would be required to participate. In the league\u2019s proposal, base rookie contract salaries of invited players who did not participate without an excused absence would be reduced by half.<\/p>\n
The WNBA\u2019s proposal comes as the NBA bargained a combine clause into its latest CBA in 2023. The NBA and NBPA agreed that all players invited to the combine must attend and participate or be ineligible to be drafted until the \u201cfirst subsequent draft for which the player attends and fully participates,\u201d with some exceptions. In the NBA\u2019s agreement, participation includes league medical examinations and sharing medical history, as well as taking part in various drills, team interviews and media circuits, among other assessments.<\/p>\n
Core designation<\/p>\n
The WNBPA has proposed eliminating the core designation \u2014 the WNBA\u2019s proverbial franchise tag. As of now, the league has rejected the idea. The union is broadly looking to eliminate team-exclusive negotiating rights. <\/p>\n
Whether the core is a part of the new agreement is also relevant to the expansion draft rules, as previous expansion drafts have included regulations regarding the number of core players.<\/p>\n
The league also seeks to limit the number of guaranteed contracts teams can offer players. Currently, teams have a limit of six veteran-protected contracts. The union is looking to remove the per-team limit.<\/p>\n
Rookie-scale contracts<\/p>\n
In the current CBA, rookie-scale contracts last four seasons, including a team option on the fourth year. The union would like to reduce the contract length to three years so players can reach free agency at a younger age.<\/p>\n
If a player enters the league at 22 \u2014 the lower limit for domestic players \u2014 she might not hit unrestricted free agency until 29, after four years on the rookie scale, one year of restricted free agency and two years of being cored.<\/p>\n
The league has repeatedly not engaged with the union on reducing the length of the rookie contract.<\/p>\n
One way to allow players to reach free agency sooner would be to lower the age limit. However, a source says that the topic has not come up. Currently, players in the NCAA have to be 22 in the year of the draft, and international prospects are draft-eligible at 19.<\/p>\n
Expanded season footprint<\/p>\n
The league proposed starting training camps as early as mid-March in its most recent proposal. The current CBA allows the league to begin training camp as early as April 1, but it has never opened camps before mid-April under the present CBA.<\/p>\n
Several scheduling conflicts could arise if the league moved up the training camp start date. Though the Unrivaled season ends by mid-March, some international professional leagues, including EuroLeague and potentially Project B, would be impacted. The WNBA has not included a concrete exclusivity clause in its proposals, but some around the league see the potential footprint adjustment as a step toward exclusivity.<\/p>\n
WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert has previously expressed caution about moving up the season\u2019s start date. Still, she has said she\u2019s open to extending the season into November.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a challenge on the front end,\u201d Engelbert said on \u201cThe Bill Simmons Podcast\u201d in May. \u201cYou can\u2019t move it too much forward if you want the rookies to come in, which we do because it\u2019s a great feeder system for us. So we\u2019ll look at the back end and how far can we go? And how many NFL and college football Saturdays can we go into, and we\u2019ll evaluate all that under the CBA.\u201d<\/p>\n
At All-Star Weekend, Engelbert also acknowledged the possibility of the 2026 season extending into November because of the 2026 FIBA World Cup.<\/p>\n
Non-birthing parental leave<\/p>\n
The current CBA doesn\u2019t include a leave policy for non-birthing parents. However, throughout negotiations, the WNBPA and league have exchanged proposals about parental leave for non-birthing parents. The league\u2019s latest proposal allows non-birthing parents one week of paid parental leave. It is unclear what the union\u2019s counterproposal includes.<\/p>\n
Housing and cars<\/p>\n
The league has removed team-issued housing from its proposals. Players are currently provided either team housing or a monthly housing stipend, which varies by team market. (The housing stipend in Las Vegas, for example, was $1,117 last season, and it was $2,647 in New York.) Meanwhile, the players have sought to include housing costs as a benefit covered in the player portion of the revenue-sharing system. The league has also proposed eliminating the provision of cars for players.<\/p>\n
Minimum facility standard, staffing requirements<\/p>\n
The WNBPA has proposed a series of requirements for teams involving their facilities, including private practice facility access and various locker room and training spaces. The league has not engaged with the union\u2019s proposal about uniform team standards across practice facilities, including private locker rooms and weight rooms. The sides have engaged in productive discussions about team staffing requirements, standardizing a minimum number of staffers, including strength and conditioning coaches, athletic trainers, doctors and others.<\/p>\n
Both parties have a mutual appetite to continue the league-wide charter program.<\/p>\n
Retirement benefits<\/p>\n
Among the possible benefits for retiring or retired players, the sides have discussed a one-time payment for former players with a certain number of years of service. However, the amount to be tendered is under negotiation. The WNBPA is also seeking a medical benefit for uninsured retired players.<\/p>\n
Mental health<\/p>\n
The union would like players to receive reimbursement for mental health services in the new CBA. The league has included access to mental health care in its proposals, but a gap remains in the financial component.<\/p>\n
Term length<\/p>\n
The current CBA went into effect in January 2020 and is set to run through the 2027 season. Both sides were allowed to opt out by Nov. 1, 2024, and the union exercised that option. There is no specification on the length of the next agreement; those terms are expected to be negotiated along with the rest of the CBA.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the WNBA and the players\u2019 union pursue a new collective bargaining agreement, sources with knowledge of the…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":461156,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[1503,1497,2472,2470,2473,234,4144,1488,1519,1520,1502,60094,1494,62,222,76705,67,132,68,1514,232],"class_list":{"0":"post-461155","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-portland-fire","20":"tag-seattle-storm","21":"tag-sports","22":"tag-sports-business","23":"tag-toronto-tempo","24":"tag-united-states","25":"tag-unitedstates","26":"tag-us","27":"tag-washington-mystics","28":"tag-wnba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115754831973899409","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461155","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=461155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}