Breanna Stewart hinted there could be a light at the end of the players’ tunnel as they continue to negotiate with the WNBA.
Time will tell if they hit the shot, but Breanna Stewart is at least seeing progress in the labor lane.
(Photo by Brian Spurlock/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Stewart is making moves on and off the WNBA floor, as the two-time league MVP continues to be one of the player leaders negotiating for a new collective bargaining agreement with the league. Though progress has been relatively fleeting, Stewart offered a positive update during the latest episode of “Game Recognize Game,” the web series she hosts with Milwaukee Bucks star Myles Turner.
“I’m feeling better,” Stewart told Turner, partly hampered by what she could reveal and keep confidential, while offering a detailed update. “I’m feeling like the owners are finally really acknowledging and being receptive of what we want. The players, as well, we all had to kind of put our business hats on and get into that mindset.
“I’m hoping we can get this thing done quickly, so then we’re not late [on the season’s start],” Stewart continued. “That’s the thing I’ve been telling them, is now that we’re a part of a revenue-sharing model, you miss games, it’s just less money. That’s not to say that we should submit and just say yes to any proposal that we don’t like. But this is a business now, and this is how businesses go.”
While negotiations have been tense, they’ve gotten a lot more personal: last week, for example, saw the league and players’ association meet face-to-face for the first time since December, a get-together that the New York Liberty forward described as “a long time coming.”
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Currently engaged in operations with Unrivaled, the domestic three-on-three league she co-founded with Napheesa Collier, Stewart attended the meeting by Zoom and was enthused by the participation. Stewart mentioned that, in addition to the player contingent and association leaders, team owners such as Ginny Gilder (Seattle), Mat Ishbia (Phoenix), and Clara Wu Tsai (New York) were also in attendance.
Stewart, one of the players’ association’s vice presidents alongside Alysha Clark, Kelsey Plum, and Collier, said the meeting lasted four hours and ended shortly before she and Mist BC faced off against Laces BC in an Unrivaled tilt. It was a busy day for Stewart, but she vowed not to “miss the moments.”
“I think that call was great, just for being able to hear the perspective of both sides, from the league side, for the player side, and what we want,” Stewart said. “So with our recent CBA proposal that we got, there’s movement. There’s traction. We’re finally headed in a direction. So I’m excited to hopefully negotiate back and really kind of do the negotiations. Because unfortunately, it’s been like, 17-18 months, and we haven’t [truly] negotiated. We’ve been just fighting, ‘we don’t like your proposal, and you don’t like our proposal, and nobody’s going to budge. So it’s been pretty frustrating, but I’ve been trying to kind of be as involved as I can.”
There’s no rest for the three-time WNBA champion, who is currently competing in Unrivaled’s one-on-one tournament that saw her defeat Mist teammate Li Yueru in the opening round on Wednesday. Round two against Aliyah Boston is scheduled for Friday night (7:30 p.m. ET, TNT/TruTV). USA Basketball also announced that Stewart would join a star-spangled training camp in Miami prior to FIBA World Cup qualifying in March.
Geoff Magliocchetti is on X @GeoffJMags
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