Stewart reveals players' frustration with stalled CBA talks. Revenue sharing remains the central sticking point, delaying crucial progress before the WNBA season.
With the clock ticking toward the 2026 WNBA season, Breanna Stewart made it clear that the players’ patience is wearing thin.
Speaking to CBS Sports after a weekend call with the union’s executive committee, Stewart acknowledged minor progress in collective bargaining agreement talks but emphasized that the process has dragged on far longer than necessary.
The Women's National Basketball Players Association, or the WNBPA, held the call Sunday to dissect the league’s latest proposal, which arrived Friday more than six weeks after the players submitted their most recent counteroffer.
Stewart said the goal was alignment. “We wanted to really understand everyone’s point of view and get on the same page about what we’re asking for,” she explained.
According to Stewart, the proposal showed movement in non-financial areas that matter to players, particularly housing and facility standards. Under the league’s offer, first-year and minimum-salary players would receive one-bedroom apartments for the first three years of the CBA, while developmental players would be provided with studios.
Those concessions followed an in-person meeting on Feb. 2 between league leadership and union representatives, including Nneka Ogwumike and Kelsey Plum.
Still, the central issue remains unresolved. “It didn’t move much money wise,” Stewart said, pointing to revenue sharing as the sticking point. Players are pushing for 30% of gross revenue, while the league has offered roughly 70% of net revenue after expenses, as ESPN reported. And that gap continues to define the stalemate.
Financially, the league’s proposal would raise the salary cap to about $5.65 million in 2026, up dramatically from roughly $1.5 million in 2025. Minimum salaries could rise to around $230,000, with average salaries starting near $530,000 and max deals approaching $2 million later in the agreement.
Even so, the union’s counterproposal envisions a much larger cap, closer to $10.5 million, with max salaries near $2.5 million.
Time pressure is mounting. Training camps are scheduled to open April 19, with the regular season tipping off May 8. Before then, the league must finalize a new CBA, conduct a double expansion draft for Toronto and Portland, and navigate the busiest free agency in WNBA history. Nearly 80% of players are currently in limbo.
“I think that both sides are very aware that this has gone on way longer than it needed to,” Stewart said. “Hopefully we can really start to hear each other on the non-negotiables.”
As Ogwumike summed it up, once revenue sharing is resolved, “everything else” can fall into place. Until then, uncertainty continues to loom over a landmark offseason.