Indianapolis – WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert remains optimistic about the conclusion of a new work agreement, and during a press conference before the star match on Saturday evening, she looked confident that the League would avoid a work stoppage with three months until the deadline for a new collective case.
A few minutes after the press conference, the WNBA All-Stars had a message to their own t-shirts as they warmed up for the mid-season competition. “Pay us what you owe us,” read the shirts. Before the match was in the fourth quarter, the versions of the shirts, officially authorized by the WNBPA, were online.
Engelbert minimized the tension between the League and the Women’s National Basketball Players Association (WNBPA) during the press conference on Saturday evening. The best leader of the League says that the work talks have been “constructive” and suggested that there are options to extend the deadline beyond the expiration date of October 31.
“We want the same things as the players want,” said Engelbert. “We want to considerably increase their salary and their advantages while balancing with our owners their ability to have a path to profitability as well as continuous investments.”
While Gelbert painted a more pink image of the discussions on the state of work, the players led by the president of the WNBPA and the star of Seattle Storm Nneka Ogwumike carried their raw message on their warm -up shirts. It was the last illustration of the distance between management and the union on how to distribute a sudden influx of income on the league, because the game benefits from popularity and commercial opportunities, even if most of the teams still lose money.
“You see that tens of millions of dollars are invested in practice facilities and other experiences of players by teams,” said Engelbert. “We want to find the right balance between the two, and it will continue, because it has helped our hyper-growth.”
At the center of the Labor struggle is the union’s request for a reworked income sharing system, players seeing a higher percentage of the League income. Engelbert said the next model will be “much more lucrative” because the league is “better” than when the last agreement was concluded in 2020.
But the players said that recent league proposals were far from the “fair” system they are looking for.
Engelbert’s comments followed the ABC meeting on Thursday in Indy, who saw more than 40 players attend, including the star of the Indiana Fever Caitlin Clark. While the session has led to a historical participation of committee members and non-committee, the crowded room of players, officials and executives has probably hampered the progress of negotiations.
“We had a frank dialogue,” said Engelbert. “It’s part of the process. … I mean I really respect the players for listening to our owners, and we … want to make sure that we create this league for decades.”
Clark, who participated in Thursday’s meeting with several other new generation WNBA stars, continued to show solidarity with the union on Saturday evening.
“We should be paid more,” said Clark, who was sidelined in the weekend festivities with a right-off injury. “And I hope this will be the case to move forward while the league continues to grow. This is probably the most important thing.”
WNBPA Director General Carmichael Jackson said that she was “very satisfied” with how players presented their files at Thursday’s meeting. The session, which was more a statement to show the collective commitment of the union than a typical negotiation meeting, was described by Jackson as “the greatest of their careers”, although it has proven to be “more than the same” than the talks seem to be blocked.
The WNBPA decided to withdraw from its current CBA last October. The League is experiencing unprecedented growth in almost all commercial metrics, including ticket sales and audience. Deleted by $ 2.2 billion from new media rights agreements which should start next year, the 13 team league plans to extend to 18 franchises by 2030.
The state of the negotiations was one of the main conversation subjects when playing players of players on Friday. Several players who participated in the meeting, including the vice-president of the WNBPA and the star of the Minnesota Lynx Napheesa Collier, recited the feeling of urgency that the union feels after the last proposals sent from the League did not leave the unused players.
“We are firm in certain areas that we are very convinced that we have to improve,” said necklace on Saturday evening. “And I think we made this message across.”
