The next deadline for agreement on a collective bargaining agreement (CBA) between the WNBA and the WNBA Players Association (WNBPA) will arrive on Friday, Jan. 8. But recent reporting has indicated neither side is happy with the current state of the CBA, and negotiations are anticipated to continue. Hosts Howard Megdal and Jackie Powell dig into all the details, and get you up to speed on today’s episode of The IX Sports Podcast.
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The two explained one of the main sore spots in negotiations: revenue sharing. The league’s proposal would grant players 70% of net revenue, while the WNBA’s counter proposal includes 30% of gross revenue, including expansion fees. Then, they explained another key rule being proposed by both sides, which would limit the max salary to 20% of the total salary cap.
“If you want to construct a pretty good team that has a good shot of winning the WNBA finals, players are going to have to take pay cuts. And that sounds familiar, doesn’t it? That sounds like exactly what has happened in the current CBA,” Powell said.
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“You’re going to end up seeing [veteran] players just not re-signed,” Megdal explained. “You’re going to go for the rookie scale, and hope you can coach them up over veterans. … being employed by this league … for six, eight, 10, 12 years, ceases to be something that is functionally happening because of a new salary cap that is too top heavy, is a really big deal. It’s a really big deal internally. It’s a really big deal for seeing players who have built this league left out in the cold because the middle class does not get their fair share of whatever this massive new increase in salaries will be. And I spoke about it at The IX Sports this Wednesday, that we are in a time of abundance … [and] suddenly the average length of the career of that third big, of that fourth guard off the bench disappears because there’s a less expensive version of her coming out of college, is not something that should be acceptable to the [WNBPA].”
Then, Megdal and Powell discussed recent news in the NCAA, and specifically Vanderbilt’s recent success in the SEC. We also hear from Commodores head coach Shea Ralph and guard Mikayla Blakes, who spoke to The IX Sports’ Stephanie Kaloi about their approach to the game and how the team has evolved over the last two years.
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