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NEW YORK — WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert told reporters on Friday that there’s urgency to get a new collective bargaining agreement done by Monday to avoid disruptions to the preseason calendar, including training camp and preseason games.
“We have to get it done by Monday. I should say, we have to get it done without disrupting some part of the fact that we’ve got to run this two-team expansion [draft],” Engelbert said. “We’ve got to get expansion going. We’ve got to get free agency going. We’ve got to get the college draft, which is now a month from today.”
The league and union have bargained for double-digit hours each of the past four days, starting Tuesday, the initial target date the league gave the union for the completion of a term sheet to avoid scheduling impacts on the 2026 season.
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Training camp is supposed to begin April 19 and the first preseason games are slated for April 25.
Women’s National Basketball Players Association executive director Terri Carmichael Jackson spoke before Engelbert so wasn’t asked directly about Engelbert’s push to complete a deal by Monday, but did share more generally that she thought the league’s deadlines have often felt “quite arbitrary.”
Nonetheless, both Engelbert and Jackson agreed Friday there’s been progress this week, particularly in negotiating the ancillary issues the past two days.
Jackson said “movement is still the word” as the sides proceed in their fourth day of intense negotiations, though, as Engelbert said, both sides “still have a lot of items to get done.”
“I think the league, and particularly the commissioner and her team, have heard that transformational remains the goal,” Jackson told reporters. “As long as movement keeps us going in a forward direction, then I think we’re good.”
All eyes will be on how the parties come to a final agreement on a new revenue sharing system.
Jackson reiterated Friday that a system “tied to revenue in a meaningful way” remains a priority for the players. “I think the continued conversations [this week] have helped us chip away at what the concerns are for both sides and how we meet them, how we address them,” she said.
The league and union have offered different systems that would determine player salaries: The WNBA has proposed that players receive, on average, over 70% of net revenue (revenue after deducting expenses), while the union’s last known offer asked for 26% of gross revenue (revenue before expenses) over the lifetime of the agreement.
The union previously bristled at the league’s proposal to give players less than 15% of gross revenue, while the WNBA has called the union’s proposals “unrealistic” and claimed they would result in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.
The sides exchanged Year 1 salary caps, according to the latest known numbers, of $6.2 million (not including revenue sharing payments) from the league and about $9.5 million from the players.
“Now we have to continue to do the dance and see where that nets out,” Jackson said.
WNBPA vice president Napheesa Collier joined the in-person bargaining Friday evening, while fellow executive committee members Brianna Turner and Alysha Clark, who were present earlier in the week, have departed.
“It is meaningful to sit across the table and listen to their concerns, them to listen to our concerns or listen to why we think something that we’re bargaining over is where we want to be,” Engelbert said. “Some cases they agree. Some cases they don’t. We listen to the players when they talk about things, and they listen to us. So, you know, progress.”
Jackson added: “Negotiations last time, that’s how we got it done. We just keep grinding and keep doing the work around the clock.”
