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NEW YORK — After a prolonged labor battle, the WNBA and Women’s National Basketball Players Association reached a verbal agreement on the terms for a new collective bargaining agreement early Wednesday, just 51 days before the league’s 30th season is set to tip.
“The progress made in these discussions marks a transformative step forward for players and the league,” WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert told reporters shortly before 3 a.m. ET, “and it’s underscoring a shared commitment to the continued growth of the game.
“It’s [been] a process, but we’re very proud to be leading in women’s sports, and these players are amazing, and we’re going to have an amazing 30th season tipping off in May.”
Engelbert, WNBPA executive director Terri Carmichael Jackson and four members of the WNBPA executive committee — president Nneka Ogwumike, vice presidents Breanna Stewart and Alysha Clark and treasurer Brianna Turner — shared the news with reporters in the lobby of a midtown Manhattan hotel, the very spot they began their 100-plus-hour stretch of marathon bargaining sessions a week prior.
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“I think this can be summed up in two words: Player empowerment … players coming to the table and standing on business and being reminded of the collective voice and of what it means to be in a union and the power of this union,” Jackson said. “They never forgot it, and they have taken it, like they always do, to the next level.”
Both sides declined to share details of the agreement. A formal term sheet still needs to be finalized, and the agreement is pending ratification by the players as well as the WNBA board of governors.
This will be the sixth CBA in league history following deals in 1999, 2003, 2008, 2014 and 2020.
“We’re just really grateful to be able to come to a deal,” Ogwumike said. “We’re proud of ourselves. And quite frankly, we always told you all we were going to stand on business, and that’s what this looks like.”
The agreement is poised to reflect the league’s skyrocketing growth and popularity, with viewership, attendance and investment reaching historic levels in the past few years. For the first time in WNBA history, the salary system is expected to be directly tied to revenue growth and players are anticipated to earn the league’s first $1 million salaries.
“This deal is going to be transformational,” Stewart said. “It’s going to build and help create a system where everybody is getting exactly what they deserve and more, from on the court and off the court aspects. Just excited that we can tell our fans that we’re going to be back.”
In a formal statement, Ogwumike acknowledged the deal’s revenue sharing system will drive “exponential” growth in the salary cap; increases average compensation beyond half a million dollars; raises the professional standard across facilities, staffing and support; and strengthens housing, retirement and other benefits.
For the first time, she told reporters, players will come into the league “and not [have] a sense of lack.”
“We’re just really grateful to be able to come to a deal. We’re proud of ourselves. And quite frankly, we always told you all we were going to stand on business, and that’s what this looks like.”
WNBPA president Nneka Ogwumike
“What we just accomplished is going to change the lives of so many players,” Clark said. “And speaking from experience, players like me are going to be the ones that I think feel it the most, and that’s what I think we’re all super proud of, because that’s what we set out from the beginning, was making sure every player felt the change in the CBA, and that’s exactly what has happened.”
Engelbert said the extended negotiations avoided any impacts to the 2026 schedule. Training camp is set to open April 19, followed by preseason games beginning April 25 and the start of the regular season May 8.
The verbal agreement comes 17 months after the players opted out of their previous agreement and five months after the former deal was initially set to expire, with talks oftentimes becoming contentious.
But after a week of intense in-person bargaining, both sides were finally able to share a moment of celebration together in their main conference meeting room, enjoying glasses of champagne as they toasted to the present and the future.
Engelbert called the deal “a fair win-win for all,” while Jackson added, “Cathy and her team understood that the players wins were the league’s wins, and that our stories of success are shared stories of success, period.”
“I really feel like a lot of what we were at the table for was for the next generation,” Ogwumike said. “When we consider the next 10 years, this is really going to continue to catapult us.”
