The WNBA and the Women’s National Basketball Players Association hunkered down for eight days and spent more than 100 hours working to ensure their employees would be paid properly and that there would be a 2026 season.
Monday night’s WNBA draft, in which UCLA’s Lauren Betts, UConn’s Azzi Fudd and TCU’s Olivia Miles can expect to hear their names early, is a testament to the opposing sides’ willingness to work through their differences and keep the people whose livelihoods depended on their negotiations in mind.
What a contrast league officials and union officials are to congressional leaders.
The collective bargaining agreement represents the “largest salary jump in all of sports history” and will usher in the league’s first million-dollar players.
What a contrast league officials and union officials are to congressional leaders who, almost 60 days into a partial government shutdown, still have not reached an agreement. In fact, Congress took a two-week Easter recess that ends this week. In the meantime, employees of the Department of Homeland Security, including members of the Coast Guard and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have, for the most part, been working without pay.
The league and its players’ union worked it out — in a way that Congress has not yet been able to do.
To be clear, the majority of the process was not a bed of roses. The players opted out of their previous collective bargaining agreement (CBA) in October 2024, and during most of the intervening time, each side was directing hostility at the other. The players and their union were highly critical of what they called the league’s stalling tactics. The league took issue with what it called the union’s posturing and public combativeness.
Not unlike the situation in Congress, there was deep polarization between the sides, especially on revenue sharing. The league wanted to deduct its expenses and then share. The players wanted a share of total revenue before expenses were deducted.
A shutdown loomed. By that, I mean, there were times when employees across the league worried there would not be a season. And I don’t just mean coaches and general managers. I’m talking about the people who work in ticket sales, staff the arenas and even the referees who officiate games.
Knowing the WNBA spent much of its nearly 30-year history being ridiculed as not being worth much attention, those associated with the league became increasingly concerned that the league’s hard-won progress and growing cultural cachet were at risk.
Players association officials Kelsey Plum and Breanna Stewart were especially concerned about what would be lost if the season didn’t start on time or didn’t happen, period.
As a result, both sides met for that eight-day marathon negotiation session. How did these two parties with such divergent interests come together and get a deal done?
“You have to do a lot of listening, reacting, responding and in some cases you are totally pivoting from what you thought when you went into a bargaining session,” WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert told ESPN host Pat McAfee.
When it was all over, the union had a deal it has described as “transformational,” not only because it provides players with higher salaries and increased benefits, but also because it gives those players a meaningful share of the WNBA’s business as it grows. That is, it allows them to benefit even more from the most recent boom in business, ushered in by younger stars, such as Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. But even more than that, the union won one-time recognition payments for retired players who built the WNBA.
“It strengthens housing and retirement, and expands resources for family planning and parental leave,” union President Nneka Ogwumike said in a statement. “It redefines what it means to be a professional in this league.”
Setting up a lot of different people for success seems like herding cats in present day American life, especially in Congress. Some lawmakers have not only been on recess for the last two weeks, but they have been vacationing — even as federal employees have struggled without paychecks.
That’s one of the reasons the WNBA’s new groundbreaking CBA, which is the result of people on opposing sides finding common ground, represents a countercultural moment. As countercultural as it seems, though, there is hope from the players that the gains from the CBA will lead to gains for women nationwide.
Alysha Clark, a union official who most recently played forward with the Washington Mystics, said in a recent interview that friends of hers were paying close attention to the negotiations and hoping the players’ win could serve as a tipping point for women.
“It’s just really incredible to see how far what we do in the WNBA trickles into the rest of society,” Clark said. “And I’m just really proud of that. I’m really proud of what we were able to accomplish, and really proud to inspire other women to go out there and get your coin, sis.”
But let us also hope that it can inspire lawmakers who have a responsibility to make sure salaries for federal employees are funded. If they need help learning how to negotiate, let them look to the WNBA.
Jackie Powell
Jackie Powell has covered women's basketball since 2019, including college basketball, the WNBA and international and high school prospects. Her work has appeared in Bleacher Report, Yahoo Sports, The Next, Sports Illustrated, the Hartford Courant, SLAM and Harper's Bazaar, and she hosts the "Locked on Women's Basketball" podcast every other week. She also is a Lady Gaga stan, a connoisseur of pop music and a mental health advocate.