Progress has been made in the labor negotiations between the WNBA and its players, as a new deadline has been set in place.
Commissioner Cathy Engelbert
The 2026 WNBA season may officially be out of timeouts if it is to be staged uninterrupted.
Fresh off another round of marathon negotiation sessions with the league’s players’ union, league commissioner Cathy Engelbert put forth another new deadline for the framework of a new collective bargaining agreement to be reached without causing interruption to the landmark 30th campaign.
Is Monday The Big Day?
“We have to get it done by Monday,” Engelbert said, per Alexa Philippou of ESPN. “I should say, we have to get it done without disrupting some part of the fact that we’ve got to run this two-team expansion [draft]. We’ve got to get expansion going. We’ve got to get free agency going. We’ve got to get the college draft, which is now a month from today.”
Sides Clicking With the Clock Ticking
For about a month, the league was working with a de facto deadline of March 10 though the players union never viewed that date as anything official. Both have nevertheless crammed in lengthy negotiating sessions in New York City, using The Langham, New York in Manhattan as a hub of sorts. High-ranking players association faces like Napheesa Collier, Nneka Ogwumike, and Breanna Stewart have been in attendance as the league inches toward a de faco buzzer.
“Please tell Cathy Engelbert & Adam Silver we want a WNBA season! Pay the Players!”
The New York City Central Labor Council parked a truck outside of the NBA Store in support of the WNBPA
(via @AFLCIO) pic.twitter.com/e4jjZK4o9v
— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) December 19, 2025
To Engelbert’s point, less than a month stands between the next major landmark on the league calendar, the 2026 WNBA Draft on April 13. The first training camps are due to open six days later and preseason games tip off on April 25. That also doesn’t take into account an incoming free agency frenzy where almost ever veteran beyond her fourth year is up for grabs, not to mention an expansion draft that will form the rosters of the incoming Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo. The 2026 season is set to get underway on May 8.
(Photo by David Becker/NBAE via Getty Images)
Despite the lack of signatures with revenue sharing still being a sticking point in the negotiations, both sides seem enthused by the progress made this week. WNBPA executive director Terri Jackson, for example, stated that “movement is still the word” as the meetings press forward. Jackson recently received an ironclad vote of confidence from Stewart, who stated that Jackson was “leading us in the best way possible” during the Unrivaled playoffs in Brooklyn earlier this month.
“I think the league, and particularly the commissioner and her team, have heard that transformational remains the goal. As long as movement keeps us going in a forward direction, then I think we’re good,” Jackson said in another report from Philippou. “I think the continued conversations have helped us chip away at what the concerns are for both sides and how we meet them, how we address them.”
Geoff Magliocchetti is on X @GeoffJMags
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