WNBA mailbag: CBA negotiation, free agency and expansion draft answers

Not even three weeks have passed since WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert handed the 2025 championship trophy to the Las Vegas Aces and cemented the franchise as the league’s reigning dynasty. But as the trophy moved through the hands of Aces players, the WNBA offseason was already beginning.

Now, all eyes are forward-looking, as the WNBA’s Collective Bargaining Agreement expires on Oct. 31 and the players union and league remain far apart on a new deal. How the talks shake out will shape other key offseason benchmarks, including the expansion draft for the Toronto Tempo and Portland Fire, as well as a free-agency bonanza featuring more than two-thirds of the league’s players.

In our WNBA mailbag, we’ll dive into some of the big-picture questions regarding the CBA negotiation, free agency, the expansion draft and officiating.

(Questions are lightly edited for length and clarity.)

Assuming no deal is reached by October 31st, and let’s say, worst-case scenario, no deal is reached until the spring of 2026, how much time would there need to be between the expansion draft/regular draft/free agency period and the start of the regular season? — Jackie B.

This is a question that stakeholders around the league will continue asking themselves as negotiations potentially extend into 2026. In 2020, a new CBA was agreed to in mid-January. The 2014 CBA was agreed to in mid-February.

In the latter situation, the college draft was still held in April and the season still began in May, but there is a lot more the league and its soon-to-be 15 teams need to accomplish this offseason.

For that reason — and after taking the pulse of a few sources around the league — it seems as if having a deal done by the beginning of March would allow for all that’s mentioned above to progress at a regular pace. In that scenario, the league could hold both its expansion draft and free agency period in March, allow the WNBA Draft to be held on schedule in April, and begin the 2026 season in May.

How exactly do the CBA negotiations impact free agency? Presumably, changes to the salary cap, etc., would affect how teams organize their rosters financially and where players decide to go. So do teams and free agents have to wait until the new CBA is finalized before figuring out rosters/making decisions? Or are there steps they can take in the meantime, even without knowing exactly how the new agreement will turn out? — Sherri.lauver

Teams are currently planning for various scenarios, doing as much prep work on individual players and team-building scenarios as they can without knowing the specifics of the new framework. The precise amount of cap space franchises will have going forward will not be settled until a new deal is reached, but there is also uncertainty about whether rules regarding core contracts or protected-player deals will also change in the future CBA.

The good news for teams is that almost everyone is in a similar position. All but two WNBA players not on rookie contracts are set to be free agents this season, so everyone will have to deal with roster shakeups.

I would like to hear what the WNBPA counteroffer is for what they want going forward. I want to hear what they feel they deserve. They also need to show they have done their homework on the numbers. Where does the money come from to obtain a bigger revenue share? They need to also show numbers as well to state their case for more money. — Klroberts02

Don’t worry, we’re working to report out the WNBPA counteroffer details. But in terms of additional revenue streams, the most significant increase in league revenue going forward is coming in the form of the 11-year, $2.2 billion media rights deal, which will go into effect next season.

Though that is the biggest media rights deal the WNBA has — referred to as its Tranche 1 — it also has a series of lesser-value media rights deals, including with Scripps to continue airing games on ION. Versant, the media company that will be spun out next year featuring NBCUniversal’s cable television networks, is also paying the WNBA for the rights to broadcast the regular season, playoffs and even portions of WNBA Finals in select years.

The WNBA can also initiate a “look-in” provision on its Tranche 1 deal in three years to increase the value of the $2.2 billion agreement with ESPN/Disney, Amazon and NBC. It is unclear what the increase would exactly be, but the value of whatever new agreement is reached can only be more than what is currently contracted, so the “look-in” represents another significant revenue opportunity.

What can realistically be done about WNBA officiating? Is it a training issue or are there better officials somewhere who could be hired? Also could NBA officials be considered to work in the WNBA? — Matt C.

Are the league and WNBPA also negotiating the quality, or lack thereof, of officiating? Does the league truly want Roller Derby in sneakers to continue? — Mark L

During the 2025 WNBA Finals, Engelbert acknowledged that the league has room to improve its officiating. She said it was “pretty clear that we’re misaligned” on what stakeholders want, and that “change is needed to serve the WNBA to the level of excellence that is not currently being met in the various stakeholders’ eyes.”

That was a notable admission to several league coaches and executives, who for years have felt their frustration about officiating was falling on deaf ears. Granular talks on how to improve officiating will commence when the league’s competition committee, made up of head coaches and general managers, meets in November. The topic of officiating often comes up at such sessions, and it is bound to arise again, especially as the details of the recently announced “state of the game” committee get ironed out.

Some stakeholders prefer systematic solutions to the officiating issue, such as paying referees more and offering them full-time salaries. Creating a dedicated WNBA replay center and providing more direction to crews about how certain games should be called will likely also be highlighted.

Various rules that are enforced (or not) will be mentioned in future conversations as areas to reevaluate. Frustration with freedom of movement principles is just one common concern. WNBA coaches are often displeased with inconsistent enforcement of other rules, too, and they have to use (or waste) their challenges on calls they believe are obvious.

Historically, officials with NBA experience rarely move into work as WNBA officials. Far more often, WNBA officials go on to work in the NBA. Earlier this month, Monty McCutchen, NBA senior vice president and head of referee development and training, announced that two more officials with WNBA experience would undergo “advancement to our NBA staff.”

Officiating, however, is not a topic that is collectively bargained between the league and the WNBPA.

Are the player complaints about the salary cap directly tied to the pure dollar value or are they looking at percentages? Because anytime someone would say they should be making as much as the male counterparts, that league has more money to spend on players, the two leagues don’t compare in what they can actually afford to pay their best players. — Craig R.

Players recognize that the NBA and WNBA generate different amounts of revenue, and the WNBPA proposals are not asking for the same maximum salary as their male counterparts. (Consider that Stephen Curry, as the highest-paid player in the NBA, gets paid more than 230 times more than Jackie Young, the highest-paid player in the WNBA this past season.)

But as the players look to increase their salaries, they are also looking to rework the revenue-sharing system and the framework for how salary tiers are determined. The union’s goal is to raise salaries as the WNBA’s business grows. Under the current CBA, the WNBA’s revenue structure doesn’t impact salaries and contains no mechanism of changing the salary cap, regardless of the economic state of the league. That latter point is a significant difference from the NBA that could be changed in the upcoming deal.

In last year’s expansion draft, teams could protect six players. How will the large number of free agents this year impact that process? Will teams only be able to protect players that are not free agents? Are the expansion teams at more risk of drafting players who can immediately negotiate and sign with other teams? — Regina U.

Although Engelbert said during her WNBA Finals press conference that the league has given general managers “some guidance” on what the league is thinking and that teams can expect “something similar” to the Golden State Valkyries’ expansion draft last December, The Athletic previously reported that team executives around the league still lack clarity on the format, even as Toronto and Portland prepare to join the league next spring.

Questions remain about how many players per team will be protected and what rules will be in place regarding unrestricted free agents, though it’s likely that some adjustments will have to be made, considering the number of free agents this offseason. Last year, Golden State could select only one unrestricted free agent in the expansion draft, provided that player is still eligible to be added to the roster. But that number might increase with two teams entering and so many players hitting the open market.