CNBC Sport: WNBA and players dig in their heels as CBA deadline set to expire

Published Fri, Jan 9 202610:00 AM EST

Alex Sherman @in/alex-sherman @sherman4949

Contessa Brewer @contessabrewer

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Key Points

The WNBA's collective bargaining agreement with its players expires at 11:59 pm ET Friday.
The WNBA and the players' association remain far apart on a deal. The key sticking point at the center of the negotiation is how the league and players share revenue.

A version of this article first appeared in the CNBC Sport newsletter with Alex Sherman, which brings you the biggest news and exclusive interviews from the worlds of sports business and media. Sign up to receive future editions, straight to your inbox. The WNBA's collective bargaining agreement with its players expires at 11:59 pm ET Friday, and the league is bracing for the possibility of an eventual player strike – though it likely won't happen right away. The WNBA and the players' association remain far apart on a deal. The key sticking point at the center of the negotiation is how the league and players share revenue. That split dictates the size of player salaries, which both sides agree need to significantly rise. The WNBA Players Association has asked for players to receive an average of about 30% of the league's gross revenue, sources told CNBC. But the WNBA has balked at the premise of sharing revenue without taking into account the league's expenses, arguing that sharing 30% of gross revenue would lead to years of sustained losses for an organization that's never made money. The WNBPA proposal would result in $700 million in losses over the course of the deal, league sources told CNBC. Instead, the WNBA is offering a roughly 70% share in net revenue over the term of a six-year agreement, or less than 15% of gross revenue, according to those familiar with the talks. This would allow the league to post profits, which the WNBA believes will help team valuations and generally build a healthier ecosystem for players. "The WNBA continues to negotiate in good faith with the goal of reaching a deal as quickly as possible. Our focus remains on reaching an agreement that significantly increases player compensation while ensuring the long-term growth of the business," said a WNBA spokesperson in a statement. The spokesperson declined to provide specific league revenue figures for 2025. New York Liberty star and WNBPA vice president Breanna Stewart said Thursday the Players Association won't agree to another CBA extension after the deadline passes Friday. There have already been two extensions since the CBA originally was set to expire on Oct. 31. The passing of the deadline will trigger a period of status quo, in which the current CBA remains in place until either the league and the union reach a new deal or one side halts negotiations. Given the significant difference in asks, the WNBPA announced on Dec. 18 that its members had voted overwhelmingly to authorize calling a strike "when necessary." That could theoretically happen as soon as midnight, though Stewart said Thursday the WNBPA will "continue to negotiate in good faith." Striking is "not something that we're going to do right this second, but we have that in our back pocket," Stewart said. The WNBA won't lock out the players, sources told CNBC. And if the players do strike, that doesn't necessarily mean games will be missed. The season doesn't start until May. "We are still waiting for the league and teams to show up to these negotiations with the same spirit of compromise," WNBPA Executive Director Terri Carmichael Jackson told CNBC on Thursday. "Instead, they have chosen delay as a pressure tactic. Lockout should not be on the league's mind. Reaching a fair agreement through genuine compromise should be." For well over a year, WNBA players have publicly campaigned for more money, given the rising popularity of the league and its stars. The NBA, which owns 42% of the WNBA, negotiated the league's most recent media rights deal last year, leading to a 6-fold increase in annual TV revenue to roughly $200 million a year. "This is the biggest moment the WNBA has ever seen," WNBA superstar Caitlin Clark said last month. "It's not something that can be messed up, and we're going to fight for everything we deserve, but at the same time, we need to play basketball." What hasn't been said as loudly, but is equally true, is how important this negotiation is to the league and its owners. The WNBA has lost money every year since its inception 30 years ago, according to people familiar with the league's finances. The WNBA views this CBA as pivotal to putting the organization in a better financial situation that can help owners get a return on their investment, keep team valuations surging, and ultimately lead to even higher salaries for players down the road. "If I was an employee working for a company, I'd want that company to have the opportunity to be in the black, not the red," a league source told CNBC on the condition of anonymity so they could speak candidly. The WNBPA has countered the premise of the WNBA's money-losing past by pointing out the fervent pace of growth and outside investors who want to buy a team. "That reality doesn't square with the fact that six new ownership groups – possibly more – are actively seeking to buy in," Jackson said. "Those investors are not lining up because they want to lose money." Dozens of WNBA stars are currently playing basketball in the second season of the 3-on-3 league Unrivaled, co-founded by Stewart and Napheesa Collier, who dismissed the league's concerns about sustainability in an interview this week. "You've heard a lot of chatter about what we're asking for is not sustainable for the business," Collier said . "Being on this side with Unrivaled, I know what it takes to run a sustainable business. If they can't find a model that makes it happen, they need to put people in place who can." To be sure, Unrivaled is bringing in only about $100 million over six years in TV revenue , or about $16.7 million per season, and the league has just 54 players — an equation that itself might be unsustainable. WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert has drawn criticism from Collier and other players during the negotiations for being what some describe as uncaring and aloof. Sources told CNBC the 61-year-old Engelbert has no plans to step down this year and intends to be the league's commissioner for its 30th season, although her path beyond that is unclear. The WNBA has increased its minimum, average and maximum salary offers in recent discussions, according to people familiar with the matter. The league is currently offering a maximum annual salary of about $1.3 million, growing to $2 million over the six-year lifetime of the CBA, said the people, who asked not to be named because the discussions are private. The league's average salary would be about $530,000, growing to $780,000 by the end of the deal. The minimum player salary in year one would be $230,000, increasing to about $290,000 in six years. For context, under current CBA terms, the league's maximum annual salary is currently about $250,000. The average salary is about $120,000, and the minimum salary is $66,000. The WNBA is proposing a team salary cap of about $5.5 million for year one of the new deal, up from $1.5 million in 2025. All figures are subject to change based on the league's actual revenue totals, which should increase over the coming years. The league is basing its figures on paying 216 players over 18 teams, accounting for three new expansion teams by 2030. There are currently 13 WNBA teams, with Toronto and Portland adding teams this season and more to follow after that. The Players Association has asked for a salary cap of about $10.5 million. "The business is doing well and is projected to do well for the foreseeable future," said Jackson. "If professional men's basketball players can be properly valued for their labor, then professional women's basketball players can be too. Don't get caught up in the shiny numbers. WNBA players have been undervalued since the league's inception." *** Sources tell CNBC there's uncertainty galore among MLB, NBA and NHL teams associated with Main Street Sports, the regional sports network company that emerged from bankruptcy about a year ago. The leagues are preparing to produce and distribute games on their own if Main Street Sports folds – a possibility if its proposed sale to DAZN falls apart. All nine MLB teams whose broadcast rights are owned by Main Street Sports have already terminated their contracts with the company, ESPN reported Thursday. In addition to those nine MLB teams, Main Street also has the rights to 13 NBA teams and seven NHL teams. The MLB teams – the Atlanta Braves, Cincinnati Reds, Detroit Tigers, Kansas City Royals, Los Angeles Angels, Miami Marlins, Milwaukee Brewers, St. Louis Cardinals and Tampa Bay Rays – can all return to Main Street if it finds a new buyer, ESPN reported. CNBC reached out to Main Street to ask the company about the state of all their teams, including the NHL and NBA. "We remain in dialogue with all of our team and league partners as we progress discussions with potential strategic partners to enhance our long-term capital position," a spokesperson said. In the meantime, league executives and team owners have called broadcast groups, such as EW Scripps, to potentially put games on their over-the-air networks, CNBC Sport has learned. Broadcast TV companies have acquired some teams' games from RSNs over the past few years, including the NBA's Utah Jazz and Phoenix Suns and the NHL's Vegas Golden Knights, Seattle Kraken and Tampa Bay Lightning. On the record With "Sunday Night Football" broadcasters Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth ... Maybe it's just recency bias, but this NFL season seems wackier than normal. Both conferences appear wide open heading into the playoffs, with close games almost assured throughout the playoffs as many teams with the same general probability of winning face off. It's a sentiment that this week's On The Record guests share – "Sunday Night Football" broadcasters Mike Tirico and Cris Collinsworth . They told me they attribute the league's parity this year to a changing of the guard among quarterbacks, with a new era of young QBs including New England's Drake Maye , Denver's Bo Nix , Houston's CJ Stroud and Chicago's Caleb Williams fighting to take the torch from veterans including Buffalo's Josh Allen , Pittsburgh's Aaron Rodgers and the Los Angeles Rams' Matthew Stafford , who are also still hanging around. "Is it time to turn it over to the big guys now, and they're going to go to the Super Bowl, or are we going to see this new era of quarterbacks take over?" Collinsworth asked, rhetorically. Tirico credited social media for increasing the confidence level of younger quarterbacks sooner than in previous eras. "I don't think kids are afraid anymore," Tirico said. "There used to be this mystique about, well, you have to wait your time. I think our whole generation of Instagram, phone, get things to me right now, I'm gonna go on Amazon, order it, it'll be here tomorrow – I think everybody's mentality is, sure, I can do it right now. And I think some of these young players are finding themselves in that spotlight and are ready for it." The duo received praise for their outstanding call of the wild Pittsburgh Steelers-Baltimore Ravens game this past Sunday. I spoke to them about the craft of broadcasting and if they realize they're delivering a historic call in the moment, or if they only know based on fan feedback after the fact. "I thought Mike crushed the biggest moments of that game," Collinsworth said. "At the end of the game, Tyler Loop , the young kicker, was out there, and Mike had done the research on this guy, knew his life story. So there's this 2-minute lull, and Mike gives you this whole story of this guy's life as he's going out for the biggest kick and he's trying to make this thing and save the team. So ultimately, when he missed the kick, it wasn't some kicker that missed the kick, it was a 22-year-old kid that we knew something about and the emotion of that moment you don't recapture with anything else in sports, and that's part of the brilliance of what he brings to Sunday night." You can watch the entire conversation here . Or listen here and follow the CNBC Sport podcast if you prefer the audio version. Contessa's Corner Sports leagues, state gambling regulators and tribal leaders have all raised concerns that prediction market trades on sports don't have the same level of guardrails as sportsbooks to protect against cheating by athletes, referees, coaches and other insiders. "Insider trading is banned on Kalshi (and always has been)," Kalshi CEO Tarek Mansour said in a LinkedIn post this week. Only he wasn't talking about sports. Mansour was talking about the anonymous Polymarket trader who profited $436,000 on "Maduro out by January 31, 2026," referencing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro , who was captured in a U.S. military operation last week. Obviously, you, me and everybody's mother could think something stinks about that trade. Could it have been coincidental? The result of non-privileged information? "The fact that this was a very new account, traded only on probabilities around U.S. intervention in Venezuela, and traded a substantial amount on the proposition … make this very suspicious," said Stephen Piepgrass , an attorney specializing in gaming, predictions and state regulatory investigations. In response to the Maduro trades, U.S. Rep. Ritchie Torres , D-N.Y., is proposing a law to ban government officials from making trades on non-public information. In the meantime, Polymarket's refusing to pay out on the millions of dollars wagered on whether the U.S. would invade Venezuela. In the fine print, the platform says President Donald Trump' s assertion that the U.S. will run Venezuela isn't enough to consider Maduro's capture an invasion. ForecastTrader, part of Interactive Brokers, had questions prepared on Venezuela, but didn't offer them as event contracts, founder and chairman Thomas Peterffy told me. "We are required by the CFTC to surveil for insider trading and market manipulation, but it is up to us how we do that," he said. Skeptics question whether the recently gutted Commodity Futures Trading Commission has the staff and resources to enforce insider trading regulations on booming predictions platforms. Piepgrass told me, "Users can open accounts anonymously and can make trades and receive payments by cryptocurrency, making enforcement difficult, if not impossible." But Peterffy says, "We have software and people who constantly monitor for out of character, large trades or large profits or losses. We know the full identity of each end customer and in cases of suspicious activity we file with the CFTC." Most of the battles around prediction markets so far have focused on sports and whether offering trades on match-ups violates states' rights to legalize and regulate gambling or tribal sovereignty when it comes to gambling on Native American land. But Mansour, who's willingly assumed the mantle of Champion of Prediction Markets, has said publicly he's on a mission to "financialize everything" — to make a tradeable asset out of any difference of opinion. It's an enormous goal to capture America's competitive spirit and appetite for risk. Peterffy insists conflating prediction markets and gambling is a misunderstanding, fueled by "frivolous questions on some platforms" about the romantic lives of celebrities and such. He told me the real opportunity is the unbiased consensus on the economy, climate change and the future of the nation. As the Maduro trade highlights, we're likely to see more attention from Congress and beyond as the industry finds its limits. CNBC Sport highlight reel The best of CNBC Sport from the past week: Another week, another Warner Bros. Discovery rejection of Paramount's $30-per-share bid. Paramount continues to argue to shareholders that its bid is superior to Netflix's $27.75-per-share offer for WBD's studio and streaming assets, but given the latest rejection and Paramount's public comments that its offer isn't best and final, it's hard not to wonder if it's just a matter of time before Paramount raises its bid. Bruin Capital CEO George Pyne stopped by "Squawk Box" this week to announce Bruin has raised a new $1 billion to invest in the sports ecosystem. The big number: 18.7 million As in, 18.7 million viewers, on average, watched a given NFL regular season game this year across TV and streaming. That's the second-highest season average on record, trailing just 1989. Records began in 1988. Amazon's "Thursday Night Football" averaged 15.3 million viewers – the highest ever in TNF's 20-year history. The 2025 season of TNF was up 16% from last year. Amazon took over the package of games from Fox in 2022. Eighty-nine of the top 100 shows on TV across the season have been NFL games, according to the league. Quote of the Week "Trump just said it: 'I'm running Venezuela.'" — Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones joked he alone would choose his team's new defensive coordinator in a press conference this week after firing Matt Eberflus from the job. Jones continued that, in reality, he'd work in tandem with head coach Brian Schottenheimer to find a new candidate. Jones was referencing Trump's comments this week that the U.S. will be "running Venezuela" and extracting oil from its huge reserves for years to come after capturing and arresting Maduro . Around the league Last year, TGL CEO Mike McCarley told me he'd begun discussions with the LPGA to develop a women's version of TGL, the simulated team golf league now in its second year. Well, that announcement became official this week . TMWR Sports (the parent company of TGL) and the LPGA have formally launched WTGL, which will debut in the winter of 2026. Match play will take place in the same facility as TGL, at the SoFi Center in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. NBCUniversal has sold out its Olympic advertising inventory about one month ahead of the Milan Cortina Winter Games, which begin on Feb. 6. Comcast has caved in its negotiations with YES Network and left the Yankees' station on its expanded basic tier in a new deal, first reported by Front Office Sports. Comcast had wanted to tier the network to a more expensive sports bundle, forcing people who watched Yankees games to pay more, but YES argued Comcast doesn't tier Mets' network SNY because Comcast is a minority owner of SNY. Apparently that argument worked.