Unrivaled’s rapid success speaks volumes as WNBA CBA negotiations continue
USAT’s Sam Cardona-Norberg breaks down Unrivaled’s successful numbers in its first two years and the WNBA’s ongoing CBA negotiations.
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After another 16 months of negotiations, the WNBA and Women’s National Basketball Players Association (WNBPA) reached an agreement in principle on a new collective bargaining agreement on Wednesday, March 18th.
Details such as the length of the contract have not yet been decided. WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said the season will open as scheduled on May 8 and training camp will begin as scheduled on April 19.
“First, I would like to thank you for your patience throughout this process, especially as we know it has been a long week,” Engelbert said in a statement. “I just want to say that we have agreed on key elements of the new collective bargaining agreement. Although we still need to finalize a formal term sheet, the progress made in these discussions represents a transformative step forward for our players and our league.” “This underscores our shared commitment to the continued growth of the game, so we will share additional details as they become available.
“We just congratulated each other. It’s obviously been a journey, but we’re very proud to be leading the women’s sport. These players are amazing and we’re going to have a great 30th season in May.”
The CBA brings to an end months of tense negotiations between the players’ union and the league, including an eight-day and 100-hour marathon negotiation between March 10th and March 18th.
The previous CBA, which went into effect in January 2020 shortly after Cathy Engelbert was named the league’s first commissioner in 2019, was scheduled to expire in 2027 after eight seasons. However, amid the league’s unprecedented growth, the WNBPA exercised its right to opt out of the agreement in October 2024, setting the expiration date of the 2020 CBA to October 31, 2025.
At the 2025 WNBA All-Star Game in Indianapolis in July, WNBA players spotlighted CBA negotiations, with all participants wearing black warm-up shirts that read “Pay Us What You Owe Us.”
WNBPA president and Seattle Storm All-Star Nneka Ogwumike said last July: “We’re seeing growth in the league, but as it stands right now, with the current salary structure, we’re not really paying what we’re supposed to be paying.” “We want to make sure that we continue to have our fair share of that, especially given all the investment that goes into it, and we want to make sure that the pay is reflected in a structure that makes sense for us.”
The new salary structure was the main issue in the negotiations. Engelbert said the league wanted to “significantly increase (players’) salaries and benefits” and work out “transformative contracts” for players, but both sides proposed different approaches. The WNBA proposed a fixed salary cap and a salary structure separate from revenue.
Negotiations reached a boiling point in October 2025, with both sides issuing conflicting statements about who was to blame for the impasse. At the time, the WNBPA claimed the league was offering “more of the same content” in one of its latest proposals, while the WNBA accused the players’ association of “publicly spreading misinformation.”
Just before the October 2025 deadline, the WNBA and WNBPA agreed to a 30-day extension, extending negotiations through November 30, 2025. Once the November deadline arrived, both sides extended collective bargaining negotiations for a second time to avoid disruption to work, setting the new deadline to January 9, 2026, about six weeks later.
In December 2025, WNBA players voted to go on strike if the impasse in CBA negotiations continued with the league. Ultimately, the WNBA and players were unable to reach a new CBA agreement by the January 2026 deadline and entered a “status quo” period, a moratorium on continued negotiations. As negotiations continue, the WNBA has set a March 10 deadline for the new CBA term sheet to be completed to avoid delaying the start of the 2026 season.
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