Action Heats Up in Women's & Men's NBA as Dealmaking Looms!

WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert set a preferred CBA deadline for Monday, March 16. As marathon talks enter day eight, the deadline has passed. The WNBA and WNBPA met again in New York on Monday for another day of ongoing talks.

Revenue and housing have been the major focal points of conversations since Saturday, March 14. According to Engelbert, the hope was if those items could be agreed upon and included in a CBA agreement by Monday or "24 to 48 hours later," the 2026 season could start on time. However, the day's meetings ended without a deal, pushing talks to close to 90 hours of negotiation time since March 10.

Per multiple reports, during a break on Monday, WNBPA executive director Terri Carmichael Jackson and WNBPA outside counsel Deb Willig spoke with on-site media . Both Jackson and Willig conceded "big issues" remained. Willig mentioned that "progress " had been made, and she "would hope" a CBA term sheet could be completed within the next "15 to 20 hours.

" Still, she also reportedly described negotiations as "unusual. " “This has been an extraordinarily unusual set of labor negotiations, and I’ve been doing this for over 50 years,” said Willig . “The why, frankly, is because the league underestimated, seriously, the resolve of the players and what they sought to achieve.