The 2026 WNBA season could be a historic one, but it won't tip off on time, or at all, if a new collective bargaining agreement isn't agreed upon between the league and players.
The WNBA established a March 10 deadline to agree to a new pact during its most recent meeting with the Women's National Basketball Players' Association (WNBPA), as to not disrupt the beginning of the 2026 season, which begins on May 8. But there's been failure to reach a framework for a deal that both sides agree on, which has been the case for quite some time.
Breanna Stewart, the WNBA superstar who plays for the New York Liberty and serves as a vice president of the WNBPA, knows both sides want the season to happen. But she's not sure a deal will be done by the proposed deadline.
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"I don't know," Stewart told Fox News Digital after a long, thoughtful pause. "I don't know if a deal gets done by March 10. Part of me wants to say yes, but part of me is like, 'Negotiations have been really slow going back and forth.' There needs to be some serious movement within the next week. Literally, I don't know."
The latest move was the WNBA sending a counterproposal to the players' union where good things, like paying for housing for all players for the upcoming season, are in play.
However, Stewart revealed the biggest roadblock in negotiations, and it shouldn't come as a surprise considering the tension between the league and players this past season.
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"The one thing is what we really can't agree on, and that's the revenue-sharing model," Stewart said.
Revenue sharing and increased player salaries are the two biggest areas surrounding these negotiations. While Stewart didn't go into specific dollar amounts, she did say why both sides don't see eye to eye right now about how revenue sharing is being negotiated.
"The PA is asking for gross and the league, the WNBA, is asking to deal in an SBI, which is a shared basketball income, where you negotiate how much money goes into that pot and that's shared to players," she explained. "That's the sticking point, that's the part where any time we get to those conversations, we never are on the same side."
In its offer to the league last week, the players' union offered an average 27.5% of the WNBA's gross revenue, which is revenue before expenses, over the course of the CBA. The union had previously asked for more than 30% of revenue. But the league said that model would cause "hundreds of millions of dollars of losses for our teams."
To Stewart's point, the WNBA's proposal would give players more than 70% of net revenue - the profits after expenses being key. And those expenses would be upgraded facilities, charter flights, five-star hotels and more for the teams.
It's been clear since last year that the players want what they feel they deserve, even going as far as to wear "Pay Us What You Owe Us" shirts during warm-ups at the WNBA All-Star Game. Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark was among those, and she said in December that these current CBA negotiations is the "biggest moment in the history" of the league. Many players feel the same.
So, while players like Stewart are standing their ground, the Liberty star also knows the clock is getting much closer to midnight now.
It also feels imperative for women's basketball to get things done for the sake of the game's momentum in terms of exposure, engagement and all-around viewership. The 2025 WNBA season was record-breaking with 2.5 million fans total attending over 226 games, and that was only with 13 teams.
ESPN also revealed that, across 25 regular season games, the WNBA on the ESPN networks averaged 1.3 million viewers, which is up 6% year-over-year. The postseason saw 1.2 million viewers, marking the most-watched WNBA postseason on the ESPN networks to date.
And there's also the 11-year, $2.2 billion media rights deal the WNBA secured with Disney (ESPN/ABC), Prime Video and NBCUniversal, which includes USA Network.
"The 2026 season will be a historic one if we're able to have it," Stewart added. "I think that from a number of different things - having a record-breaking TV deal finally coming into place. Having two more teams with Portland and Toronto being added to the WNBA. It will be interesting to see if free agency happens fast, how much movement that there will be. You're going to see players getting a lot more money than they ever have in the WNBA before.
"It's getting to the point now where both sides really need to be able to kinda adjust and adapt for each other."
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