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The WNBA and its players are officially in limbo on a new collective bargaining agreement, after an early-January deadline came and went without a new deal. And with less than four months to go before the 2026 season is due to start, ESPN’s Rebecca Lobo worries that players are losing support among fans compared with the high points of last season.
At All-Star weekend in Indianapolis last year, players wore t-shirts with the message “Pay Us What You Owe Us,” which went viral online and earned applause from the live crowd. Later during the playoffs, union leader and reigning Defensive Player of the Year Napheesa Collier called out commissioner Cathy Engelbert directly, saying the WNBA has “the worst leadership in the world.”
During an appearance on the podcast A Touch More this week, Lobo said coming off those viral moments, fan support for the players was “100 percent.” But as CBA negotiations have dragged on, Lobo believes the language used by their players has hurt their cause.
“Some of the rhetoric I’ve heard from their side has been a little bit troublesome,” she said. “When a deal is presented that’s over a million max salary and revenue share, it’s called a ‘slap in the face.’ Just use different words. And I’m worried the players might be getting to a point where they’re losing some of the support from the public. And I think that’s been a big part of this all along.”
According to ESPN, the most recent proposal from the league would see the average player salary number rise from $120,000 to more than $530,000. The max salary would rise from just under $250,000 to more than $1.3 million.
But players reportedly have countered with a salary cap more than twice as high as the league’s latest offer, and have pushed throughout the negotiation for the cap to be tied directly to gross revenue, like it is for most men’s leagues. Owners prefer to set the cap based upon net revenue.
Lobo worries that WNBA players are unlikely to get sympathy from the average fan at home if they continue to call six and seven-figure salaries a “slap in the face.”
“As these negotiations have gone on, it feels like some of (the fan support) is waning,” Lobo said.
“And I think some of it has just been the language and the verbiage and that sort of the thing that we’ve heard from the players’ association. I think the players just need to be a little bit more careful with how they’re articulating things. Because if you’re working whatever job, a max salary of $1.2 million, average salary of $500,000, if you don’t think it’s fair that’s fine, but don’t call it a slap in the face.”
ESPN reported the two sides are hammering out a compromise on how to handle 2026 free agency, which has been on hold.
Lobo, one of the first star players out of the WNBA and the top game analyst covering the league for many years, said she wants players to get everything they possibly can on the next CBA. At the same time, Lobo added, she hopes players and fans alike can gradually begin to see the eventual agreement as a success, even if owners refuse to budge much more:
“No one should go away feeling like this is anything other than an awesome deal for the players.”
