US women’s basketball’s WNBA major league has finally reached an agreement with its WNBPA labor union on a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) for the upcoming cycle, ending the prospect of a lockout at the last minute.
Cathy Englebert, the WNBA commissioner, officially stated: “We have aligned on key elements of a new collective bargaining agreement together.”
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While not official and signed yet, a preliminary verbal agreement was reached in the early hours of Wednesday morning, following over a week of crunch day and night negotiations seeking to avert what could have been a disastrous lockout.
In all, over 100 hours of negotiations were required to ameliorate the divide between the two parties on prominent issues such as the salary system and revenue sharing.
On the prospective new agreement, WNBAPA vice-president Brianna Stewart revealed: “This deal is going to be transformational, and you’ll see all the details hopefully soon, but it’s going to build and help create a system where everybody is getting exactly what they deserve and more from on the court and off the court aspects."
The WNBA players have long sought a salary system like the men’s NBA, which uses basketball-related income to determine its salary cap, rather than a fixed rate model used in the previous CBA.
The last CBA expired after the 2025 campaign, with the WNBA opting out of the final year of that agreement (which would have covered 2026) back in October 2024 in favor of entering a new negotiation period.
Negotiations have been ongoing since the opt-out, but there was significant trouble in reaching a deal, with both sides at points accusing the other of refusing to engage with the process.
The 2026 WNBA campaign will begin on May 8, and should avoid disruption in the fallout, despite the WNBA previously stating that a March 10 deadline was required to avoid any delay in the season tip-off.
A lockout, effectively a delay or outright cancellation of the WNBA campaign, would have significantly halted the WNBA’s strong momentum, which has seen continued broadcast viewership growth and the addition of multiple expansion franchises.
