three-hour meeting<\/a> Monday at the NBA offices, the union left with the understanding it would have a new proposal soon. It came Friday.<\/p>\nThe major sticking point has been revenue sharing. The players want around 30% of the gross revenue \u2014 money generated before expenses \u2014 for the first year in their latest proposal. Under the league\u2019s last proposal, players would receive in excess of 70% of net revenue, though that would be their take of the profits after expenses are paid. Those expenses would include upgraded facilities, charter flights, five-star hotels, medical services, security and arenas. <\/p>\n
The league\u2019s previous offer last month would guarantee a maximum base salary of $1 million in 2026 that could reach $1.3 million through revenue sharing. That\u2019s up from the current $249,000 and could grow to nearly $2 million over the life of the agreement. <\/p>\n
That was on slides that were presented to players at Monday\u2019s meeting and obtained by the AP.<\/p>\n
The slides also outlined 37 areas where the league was willing to make concessions players wanted. Some of those proposals included adding two developmental player slots to teams, giving pregnant players the right to refuse trades, increasing the guaranteed contracts on a team and codifying charter flights as well as other first-class travel considerations.<\/p>\n
If a new CBA isn\u2019t agreed upon soon, it could delay the start of the 2026 season. It\u2019s already delayed the expansion draft for Toronto and Portland.<\/p>\n
The last CBA was announced in the middle of January 2020, a month after it had been agreed to. It could easily take two months from when a new CBA is reached to get to the start of free agency, which was supposed to begin last month. With a massive salary raise expected in a new CBA, 80% of players in the league are free agents this offseason, which makes this the biggest opportunity for player movement in the history of the WNBA.<\/p>\n
A delay would hurt both sides as every game that is missed, revenue would be lost, as would be sponsorships, television money and fan support.<\/p>\n
Ogwumike, who is in her third term as union president, said that the long wait for a response hasn\u2019t been all bad, as she and union leadership have had a chance to talk with WNBA players. She was in Nashville on Thursday with union leadership at Athletes Unlimited. It was a chance to take a pulse of the players. Ogwumike has been talking to as many players as she could over the last few months to keep them abreast of discussions and hear their opinions.<\/p>\n
\u201cI actually like the fact that we\u2019ve had these six weeks now, still waiting for a proposal. It\u2019s given us the gift of time,\u201d she said. \u201cAnd so, you know, in December, after the strike authorization vote, we were able to meet in Miami and talk to players.\u201d<\/p>\n
Players voted to give union leadership the right to strike in December. Ogwumike said despite that, a strike is not imminent, although the union did post on social media a video about the 1964 NBA All-Star Game strike. The NBA All-Star Game is next weekend in Los Angeles. <\/p>\n
\u201cHaving the strike on the table is something that we\u2019re very much aware of, but there\u2019s so many more conversations that have to happen,\u201d Ogwumike said. \u201cYou know, we\u2019re not just going to say, `Hey, today\u2019s the day (we\u2019ll strike).\u2019 You know, I think that\u2019s what what we\u2019re demonstrating right now is negotiating in good faith.\u201d<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
AP WNBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/wnba-basketball<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 WNBA players\u2019 union president Nneka Ogwumike said significant work remains for the season to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588065,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3724],"tags":[7,79023,12371,75525,66,3261,458,11239,11862],"class_list":["post-588064","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-basketball","tag-labor-unions","tag-nneka-ogwumike","tag-send-to-apple-news","tag-sports","tag-sports-transactions","tag-wnba","tag-wnba-basketball","tag-womens-national-basketball-association"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116028722759390506","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588064","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588064"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588064\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588065"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588064"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}