On this basketball edition of The IX Sports Podcast, hosts Howard Megdal and Jackie Powell sit down to discuss the WNBPA’s six-season financial move that strengthens their position in ongoing collective bargaining agreement (CBA) negotiations.
Megdal spoke about the revelation, first reported by ESPN’s Katie Barnes, that the WNBPA has been amassing a “war chest” from licensing fee revenue. That revenue was earned through both the group licensing company OneTeam Partners and the WNBA directly, and had been built up by the union since 2020.
“I see this paragraph [in Barnes’ report], and my first thought was, ‘That’s a lot of money.’ My second thought was, ‘Why did that money not get paid out over this six-year period?” Megdal said. “And then that initial feeling was reinforced by my phone … blowing up from players, from agents, from people around the league, like, ‘Hey, what is this? What’s going on here?'”
Later, Megdal explained the answer to that second question: Why did that money not get paid out over this six-year period?
“The WNBPA, by virtue of the way they’ve structured this, has put themselves in a safer position,” Megdal noted in reference to the chance of a work stoppage. “This decision … was made back in 2020, and that seems strange to a lot of people at first, right? This idea: why, the year [the last CBA] was signed, were they putting together what amounts to a strike fund? But I spoke to numerous other senior officials in different unions, and this is a not uncommon thing. You don’t know what the rainy day is.
“Maybe the rainy day will be, God forbid, COVID-19, as it turned out to be, and some unions were better able to handle that than others in 2020 because of rainy day funds that have been put together. It is my understanding that one union had been doing this for 20 years … so six years is not all that crazy. In fact, just the opposite. It was incredibly smart because of where it ended up landing the WNBPA today.”
Then, Megdal and Powell are joined by Michelle Smith to discuss Smith’s new book — Life’s Work: How Tara VanDerveer and Stanford Women’s Basketball Changed the Sport — and VanDerveer’s overall impact on women’s hoops.
To cap the episode, Powell and Megdal discuss the recent death of WNBA champion Kara Braxton, the retirement of New Jersey coaching legend Jeff Jasper, and the importance of preserving the history of women’s basketball.
Make sure to subscribe to The IX Sports Podcast for in-depth coverage of women’s soccer, hockey and basketball; and tune in each weekday morning for a quick overview of the biggest headlines on Women’s Sports Daily. The IX Sports Podcast, Hockey Edition, will now run weekly.
What you missed on Women’s Sports Daily: PWHL talk, and a Big Ten rivalry classic.