Welcome to our last podcast before 2026: the year of review in women’s sports! Join our hosts Howard Megdal, Jackie Powell, Kathleen Gier and Maya Smith for an episode where the quartet goes through the most important and their favorite stories across the women’s basketball, women’s soccer and women’s hockey universe that defined 2025.
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Later on, each of our hosts announces their fearless predictions for their sport in 2026 which includes Howard and Jackie arguing about if the WNBA players end up striking in 2026.
“How I see it happening is the players go on a one month strike that ends in mid February with a CBA being ratified or agreed to,” Powell said. “And this would happen like around NBA All Star, which is in mid February, then the Expansion Draft would either be a week or two weeks after NBA All Star, and then that would clean the decks for all of March to be WNBA free agency all the while women’s college basketball is going on.”
Megdal had a different take.
“My fearless prediction is there will not be a strike, and so I will make the argument,” he said. “I understand what you’re saying, but my prediction, as somebody who has seen the future and can tell everybody definitively what’s going to happen, there will not be a strike for a couple of reasons. In my view, the WNBA will get to a point where their business gets affected before actual games would be affected.”
For more on the upcoming WNBA negotiations, the year that it was in women’s soccer and the PWHL, listen to the podcast below.
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