As the impending October 31 deadline to agree on a new CBA approaches, the WNBA and its players’ union (the WNBPA) remain locked in tense negotiations; and it’s not looking good.[i] Regarding the parties’ chances of finding an agreement, the WNBPA’s senior advisor and legal counsel Erin Drake told ESPN last week, “Unfortunately, I’m not confident.”[ii]
Tensions have been this high for quite some time now. In her late-September exit interview, Minnesota Lynx star and WNBPA Vice President Napheesa Collier called the WNBA’s leadership the “worst . . . in the world,” sparking other players to join her in criticizing the league’s handling of collective bargaining negotiations.[iii] Faith Herlan noted this in her recent post: “The WNBA Faces Criticism from Players as Collective Bargaining Agreement Negotiations Stall and Potential Work Stoppages Loom,” laying the foundation for this dispute.[iv]
The key issue holding up an agreement between the WNBPA and the WNBA is player salaries.[v] The WNBPA wants a revenue-sharing model that ties player compensation to league income, meaning that players’ salaries would increase as the league’s income increases.[vi] In comparison, the current system sets a simple maximum salary of $250,000.[vii] The union has argued that the WNBA’s recent boom in prominence has made the existing model obsolete. This is far from an unpopular view: NBA Commissioner Adam Silver prognosticated that the WNBA players would receive a “big increase” in salaries in their new CBA.[viii]
The league, led by Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, insists that it has offered “both significant guaranteed salary cap increases and substantial uncapped revenue sharing that enables player salaries to grow as the league’s business grows.”[ix] However, the WNBA doubts that the “uncapped” revenue-sharing model is truly “uncapped.”[x] WNBA executive director Terri Jackson explained, “The fact that the league now wants to call any part of its proposal ‘uncapped’ is precisely why its leadership, transparency, and accountability are being challenged right now.”[xi]
It’s rare to see a collective bargaining dispute of this magnitude arise when a league is performing this well. Historically, major league work stoppages, such as the 1994 MLB strike or the 2004 NHL lockout, have followed financial instability, not growth.[xii] The WNBA’s situation flips the script: a league experiencing unprecedented popularity now faces internal friction over how it should divide its success.
Currently, the parties continue to talk, but neither has ruled out a work stoppage if talks stall past the October 31 deadline.[xiii] As Faith’s earlier post outlined, this dispute has evolved from mere public frustration into a broader test of collective bargaining power: how should the proceeds from sudden league success be equitably distributed? With days remaining before the CBA expires, the question isn’t whether the league can keep growing, but whether the players and the owners can agree on a model that sustains growth while delivering fair value to those driving it.
[i] Kendra Andrews & Alexa Phillippou, What we’re hearing on the WNBA’s CBA negotiations, ESPN (Oct. 22, 2025).
[ii] Id.
[iii] Id.
[iv] Faith Herlan, The WNBA Faces Criticism from Players as Collective Bargaining Agreement Negotiations Stall and Potential Work Stoppages Loom, UB Law Sports & Entertainment Forum (Oct. 15, 2025).
[v] Kendra Andrews & Alexa Phillippou, What we’re hearing on the WNBA’s CBA negotiations, ESPN (Oct. 22, 2025).
[vi] Id.
[vii] Id.
[viii] Id.
[ix] Id.
[x] Id.
[xi] Id.
[xii] U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, The 1994-95 Major League Baseball Strike and Its Aftermath, Monthly Labor Review (Mar. 1997); U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, The 2004-05 National Hockey League Lockout, Monthly Labor Review (Dec. 2005).
[xiii] Kendra Andrews & Alexa Phillippou, What we’re hearing on the WNBA’s CBA negotiations, ESPN (Oct. 22, 2025).
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