Another marathon negotiating session between the WNBA and its players union didn’t end with a new collective bargaining agreement.
For the seventh consecutive day, the two sides met for over 12 hours and while they said progress was being made heading into Monday’s negotiation session, there was still work that needed to be done when the sides ended discussions for the night around 3:30 a.m. EDT Tuesday.
Revenue sharing continues to be the big sticking point between the sides.
Neither side spoke to reporters after the session, but both had said earlier Monday that progress had been made over the last few days.
“We’re working as hard as we can to get it done as quickly as possible,” WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said after Sunday’s 15-hour session finished that also ended after 3 a.m. “It’s complex. There’s a lot. There’s a lot of system elements. There’s a lot of structure elements. ... This is a big, big league and we want to do everything we can for the players. So, we’re going to keep making progress.”
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It’s been a long week of discussions with the WNBA and union meeting face-to-face for around 90 hours since the first in-person bargaining session last Tuesday. None of the sessions have ended before midnight.
“We’re still working. We’re still fighting. There’s still some things that we have to — big issue things — that we have to get through,” union executive director Terri Carmichael Jackson said before Monday’s session. “So, we’re just going to stick with it and stay with it.”
Jackson said there is agreement on some areas but there’s still work to get done on big items.
Before Monday’s negotiating session, union counsel Deborah R. Willig was asked if she thought a deal could get done that day.
“For myself, I thought we were going to get this done yesterday, and I thought the day before so I would hope, but this has been an extraordinarily unusual set of labor negotiations, and I’ve been doing this for over 50 years,” the managing partner of Willig, Williams and Davidson said. “I think the why, frankly, is because the league underestimated seriously the resolve of the players and what they sought to achieve.”
The executive committee of players have been putting in the time alongside the union leadership throughout the negotiations, showing their resolve. Committee members Nneka Ogwumike, Breanna Stewart, Napheesa Collier, Brianna Turner and Alysha Clark have been there for most of the discussions, frequently leaving well past 2 a.m.
“The fact that they just don’t want to stop, both sides, it’s not just the league side, it’s even the union,” said Connecticut Sun president Jen Rizzotti, who is on the labor relations committee. “They want to get it done. I think it’s admirable to know that they’re paying attention to the fact that this is crucial and time is of the essence and we need to have a season.”
The key sticking points have been revenue sharing and housing.
League proposals have involved net revenue — revenue after expenses — and union ones have talked about gross revenue — revenue before expenses. When negotiations first started more than a year ago, the union was asking for 40% of gross revenue and had come down to 26% before the marathon in-person bargaining session Tuesday. The league had been offering more than 70% net revenue for the players.
Teams have paid for player housing in the WNBA since the beginning and the league wanted to amend that in the new CBA.
“We’re trying to enter into this transitional space where we are now making enough money to be able to take care of that, but we’re not quite at the point where we can eliminate it outright,” Ogwumike said.
If these two major items can get figured out, the season most likely would be able to start on time on May 8. But the clock is ticking. Engelbert said she didn’t know if training camp would be moved from April 19 if a deal isn’t done soon.
“I wish I knew the answer to that. I do not know the answer to that,” Engelbert said. “But you see us here at three in the morning, four in the morning, at five in the morning. So that gives an indication that both sides are motivated at that time.”
