Breanna Stewart ready for ‘spicy’ labor talks with league

Several months into negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement, it appears the Women’s National Basketball Players Association and WNBA have made little progress in striking a deal before the current contract expires after this season. 

The WNBPA received its first response from the WNBA last month, which Mercury star Satou Sabally recently called a “slap in the face.” 

Speaking after Liberty practice Saturday, WNBPA vice president Breanna Stewart said the league’s response was “pretty polar opposite” to the players union’s initial proposal. 

“That was the hardest part,” Stewart said. “It’s like, we’re not even talking about the same thing right now. We’re talking about X’s and O’s at this point and completely different sides of the game.” 

The slow negotiation process between the two parties is gearing up for what Stewart believes will be a “spicy” meeting between players and the league in Indianapolis during All-Star weekend later this month. 

The stakes for this CBA are much different than past years. 

The WNBA has exploded in popularity, and the players want to reap the fruits of their labor. 

TV viewership and attendance is up. Last year, the WNBA announced an 11-year media rights deal that’s valued at a whopping $2.2 billion. 

And just this week, the WNBA announced that it’ll expand to 18 franchises by 2030, with Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia each reportedly paying a $250 million expansion fee. 

The players opted out of the current deal last October, which gave the union and WNBA a year to hash out a new contract. 

But with only 118 days until the current CBA expires, there appears to be a lot of work to be done. 

The players have been open about their desire for revenue sharing, increased salaries, expanded rosters and having a seat at the table for media rights negotiations among other things. 

The WNBPA said it sent multiple proposals to the WNBA over the past few months, but didn’t receive an official response until June. 

WNBPA president Nneka Ogwumike said it took awhile for the league to counter because it didn’t accept the union’s initial drafts as legitimate proposals. 

Ogwumike and the rest of the union went back to the drawing board and added more details. The players held meetings two or three times a week even after the season started. 

“It’s been made clear that this perception that the players don’t understand the business,” Ogwumike told reporters after Storm practice Saturday. “[WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert] told me that to my face myself.” 

Ogwumike believes the players have submitted a “fair” bid. 

“We want to have a growing portion of the revenue share,” she said. “We want this league to be exactly what it is today and more. So I’m hoping that something positive progressive yields from this meeting that we’ll have in Indy.” 

WNBPA executive director Terri Carmichael Jackson said in May that the union is committed to negotiating “for as long as it takes” on a new CBA and didn’t rule out a potential work stoppage. She hoped that the two parties would have made “significant progress” by All-Star weekend, which is scheduled for July 18-19. 

But the process up to this point has been “a little bit slow,” Stewart said. 

“From the players’ perspective, it’s hard to be able to navigate this during the middle of the season, but also we know how important it is and really getting it done before the end of October and we’re making that effort to be able to do both,” Stewart said. “The fact that it’s been a little bit slow to start is tough, but hopeful things will ramp up now after getting their proposal back. We have a big meeting in Indy at All-Star and it’s gonna be spicy.”