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Is no collective bargaining agreement (CBA) news good news?
Ahead of the league-imposed March 10 deadline for a new CBA, the WNBA and WNBPA met at The Langham, a luxury hotel in Midtown Manhattan, for almost 12 hours.
The meeting began at 5 p.m. ET continued past the midnight deadline and finally concluded around 5 a.m. ET, according to reports from ESPN’s Alexa Philippou and Front Office Sports’ Annie Costabile, both of whom were camped out on the premises, along with the AP’s Doug Feinberg and The IX Sports’ Jackie Powell.
In addition to WNBA leadership and WNBPA staff, those participating in the bargaining session included New York Liberty owner Clara Wu Tsai and players Nneka Ogwumike, Breanna Stewart, Alysha Clark and Brianna Turner, all of whom are members of the WNBPA executive committee.
While the players and Tsai reportedly departed around 3 a.m. ET, exiting out a side door and declining to offer comment after meeting for nearly 10 hours, the other parties continued bargaining.
Before the session concluded, WNBPA executive director Terri Carmichael Jackson briefly spoke to the assembled media. Asked to describe the negotiations, she said: “I would describe the last 10, 11 hours as a lot of conversation going in the right direction.”
However, she declined to provide an affirmative statement about the possibility of a deal being reached in the next few days, saying, “You know, the only thing I’m going to say on that is conversations are continuing as they need to be.”
After WNBPA staff first departed just before 5 a.m. ET, WNBA leadership, including Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, remained until around 5:20 a.m. ET. When finally leaving, Engelbert briefly spoke to the on-site reporters, saying of the state of negotiations:
It’s complex. But we’re working towards a win, win deal like we’ve been saying, transformational deal for these players that balances all the things we’ve been trying to balance with continued investment by our owners, etc. So, we’re working hard towards that, and we still have work to do.
Although no deal appears imminent, the actions of both sides—from no leaks about the most recent counterproposals to the marathon bargaining session—suggest, at least for now, a commitment to compromise, cooperation and communication that had been absent since the CBA officially expired at the end of October.
