What is the WNBA CBA?

The WNBA CBA stands for a Collective Bargaining Agreement which all players sign when they enter the league in order to be paid and have an understanding of what revenue markers they will be making. The most recent CBA expired at the end of the 2025 WNBA season and there is a new debate happening in order to create a new one that allows players and everyone in the league to receive their fair revenue share and salary. So what does the CBA control? It talks about the different salaries that players can have including rookie contracts, team salary caps (a total number of payments that a team can pay their players but cannot go over that dollar amount), as well as how player free agency works during the WNBA season. A new CBA is being constructed for the 2026 season but it has not yet been able to come to agreement. The agreement takes place when the players, the Women's National Basketball Association and commissioner all come to an agreement and the contract can be signed. Some key points that have been at high contention for this specific bargaining time are coming to a mutual understanding of revenue sharing, finding a middle ground on housing, leaning into wins, and reestablishing trust (Philippou, et al. 2026). These are key points that the league wants to either change or omit from the new CBA negotiations.Why is housing important? The league has such a high turnover rate because of the small team sizes. The WNBA only has 12 roster spots in comparison to the NBA which has 15 roster spots per team. So when the draft happens and people need to be cut because there are too many women for one team that means there's a high turnover rate. Women are also more likely to be hurt because of how aggressive they can be during games. “Women and girls are powerful athletes. But they may be more likely to experience certain sports injuries because of their anatomy and hormones. Female athletes and athletes assigned female at birth tend to be shorter and lighter compared to male athletes. They are also more likely to have certain anatomical features:­ Narrow shoulders: This can result in less upper body strength. With less strength in the arms and shoulders, athletes may compensate in ways that increase the risk of injuring other areas, like the back. Wide hips: Broader hips create an angle between the hips and knees that puts stress on knee joints. Weak core: Strong back and abdominal muscles stabilize the body and help absorb force when running or jumping. A weak core can lead to injuries in the hips, knees and ankles. Short limbs: People with shorter legs and arms must use more force to achieve the same results as people with longer extremities when running, jumping or throwing. Increased joint laxity (hypermobility): After puberty, women’s joints tend to have a greater range of motion than those of men. This increases the risk of ligament injuries such as ankle sprains or anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears. Strong quadriceps muscles with weak hamstrings: This combination causes an imbalance that can strain the knee and increase the odds of knee injuries Small head and neck: A smaller head means less ability to absorb shock. Research suggests that smaller head size and neck girth might be one reason that concussions are more common in female athletes than male athletes. Concussion symptoms also tend to last longer in women.” (Coslick, Alexis). So with all these differences this makes it so that a team either needs to pickup players or cut them when they get injured. If a player were to sign a lease somewhere then be cut a week later they are stuck. But if they are provided housing by the team this helps with that problem of a high turnover rate that is seen year after year. Especially after the draft and training camps. An example of the high roster changes is the Indiana Fever from the 2025 season. They started with 13 players including Caitlin Clark, Dewanna Bonner, Sophie Cunningham and Makayla Timpson. These were some of the active players as of May 5, 2025 during the preseason. By the end of the season Clark was injured as well as Cunningham so the Fever added many new players such as Chloe Bibby and Aerial Powers from the Golden State Valkyries as well as trading Dewanna Bonner to the Phoenix Mercury and later adding Shey Peddy from the Los Angeles Sparks. (WNBA Rosters).

How is the CBA a Place of Controversy?

The start of this controversy is from the beginning of the league in 1996. The way that revenue and payment was shared was very different because the WNBA being a subsidiary of the NBA they paid for everything and lost money because the WNBA could not hold revenue. The league has lost money every year yet the NBA still pays for it so with that idea the CBA contracts take out 42% of whatever money the WNBA takes at the end of the season. “The NBA owns 42% of the WNBA, and WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert reports to Silver. He was asked if WNBA players should be getting a larger share of the revenue in the league” (Stump, Scott 2025). So the CBA must have enough money to pay back the NBA what they want as well as the commissioner, players, general managers of teams and everyone else involved in the league. “The NBA and WNBA used to have a 50/50 split of ownership of the league. That number has changed since the league got a $75 million dollar investment in 2022. Those investors now owns 16% of the league. The other 84% is split 42% for the WNBA and 42% for the NBA. Then you take into account that six of the 13 franchises in the WNBA are owned by NBA team owners, those figures more realistically account for 60% ownership for the NBA” (Arlauckas, Dane, 2025). The 2025 season was important for the status of the CBA because from that season it had expired for all players and a new contract needs to be created and agreed on. So with the deals and contracts that people need in the league are not being agreed on. The 2026 season CBA was supposed to be signed in October of 2025 and is continually being pushed back because of a lack of an agreement being held. Also with that it is causing the players to want to strike if a deal cannot be made. 

What is the player's response? 

The largest response the players in the league had was during the 2025 All-Star Game in Indianapolis when the players participating in the game wore a “Pay Us What You Owe Us” t-shirt during their pregame shoot around. This took everyone by surprise because this was a direct outlash of the players wanting to say something about having to renegotiate a new CBA at the end of the 2025 season. Some players like Breanna Stewart of the New York Liberty have been one of the main spokesmen of the CBA and how it affects players. “The EC wanted to "really understand everyone's point of view" and "get on the same page about what we're asking for," WNBPA vice president Breanna Stewart told CBS Sports in an exclusive interview Monday” (Maloney, Jack, 2026). The players as well as the league want resolution but its proving difficult to promote that. Natasha Cloud, another player on the New York Liberty also said it would be a large mistake for the league to not pay players. Referencing the idea that the players deserve a higher salary and wages for their efforts in the league. Sophie Cunningham has also spoken out about the CBA a lot on her podcast and on social media. Saying that if the league and players cannot come to an agreement they will strike and force a lockout which will affect the entire 2026 WNBA season and how they proceed. Especially with two new expansion teams in Toronto, Canada and Portland, Oregon. Without a CBA there has been no expansion draft for these new teams which means they have no players to pay or promote but no players will play without a signed contract. It's becoming a cycle and a pile-on to stay understanding what each side wants and certain things are or are not possible to ask for in the new CBA contracts. Many of these confrontations happen on Instagram because it's the fastest and easiest way for players to speak out. They utilize companies like “Just Women’s Sports” and other athletic blogs or journals in order to promote and create awareness of what is happening. The amount of publicity around this also creates a space where other content creators are wanting to jump in and talk about their opinions on what the players are rightfully owed from the league. Some videos have consisted of keeping team housing, higher salary, increasing team rosters as well as injury reserve players and health care for them. 

Journalism + Jokes

People are taking sides with the jokes as well as the journalistic aspects. Most articles are from ESPN or sports papers. However, there are many different opinions online on social media platforms like Reddit, (see figure 1). It shows more about taking sides and how people are just trying to find someone to blame. Most people are blaming Cathy Engelbert who is the commissioner of the WNBA, people love to use her name in order to say she is the cause for the harsh realities and lack of pay as well as all delay of the CBA throughout this process of the negotiations for the new CBA. Figure 2 shows how different negotiations are being talked about and screenshotted throughout different social media platforms in order to show support or pick a side on if the players are asking for too much or asking for justifiable things during this time of renegotiation. Other players have joined in to speak as well as make jokes similar to Sophie Cunningham and her podcast where she lightly talks about the negotiations but also talks about the frustrations of them at the same time. 

Commodification

There is yet to be a resolution to the CBA negotiations. So this is still an ongoing conversation. Kelsey Plum had a lot to say in a recent ESPN article “NEW YORK -- Kelsey Plum said that while the players' union should continue to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement, she believes the offer the WNBPA has received from the WNBA so far reflects a "significant win" and that "a strike would be the worst thing for both sides." "I want to play, and players want to play," Plum, the WNBPA first vice president, said at Unrivaled shootaround prior to Monday night's semifinal games in Brooklyn. "And so obviously we're going to continue to negotiate and do everything we possibly can to get this done in a timely fashion. But obviously a strike would be the worst thing for both sides, because we are in a revenue [sharing system], so no revenue, no revenue to share" (Philippou, Alexa 2026). The newest update is that in the 2025 season the league was able to generate enough revenue for a revenue sharing system which Kesley Plum mentions in this article. “For the first time in history, the WNBA generated enough revenue in 2025 to trigger revenue sharing with its players, union leadership told ESPN on Sunday. Union leaders said the league notified player leadership earlier this month that they hit the benchmark. The 13 teams will receive a total of $8 million from the league to disperse among players, the union said.The Women's National Basketball Players Association declined to provide bank statements, the amount of revenue generated by the league or the number required to trigger the revenue sharing” (Barnes, Katie 2026). This is just a small idea of what the revenue sharing process will do for each team. But without a CBA agreement it means that the league can't payout because there isn't a contract in place to give the players a contract of payment or other things they are wanting in the league that come with an agreement of contract (see figure 2). There has been an update that the league if an agreement has not been made by March 10, 2026 it will impact the 2026 season which will cause a loss of money in many aspects including fans, players, and staff. 

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