NEW YORK — Women’s National Basketball Players Association executive director Terri Carmichael Jackson said Friday that “movement is still the word” as the players’ union and WNBA proceed through their fourth day of intense collective bargaining negotiations in midtown Manhattan.
“I think the league, and particularly the commissioner and her team, have heard that transformational remains the goal,” Jackson told reporters. “As long as movement keeps us going in a forward direction, then I think we’re good.”
The league and union have bargained for double-digit hours each of the past four days, starting Tuesday, the target date the league initially gave the union for the completion of a term sheet to avoid scheduling impacts on the 2026 season.
Both sides have made progress on ancillary issues during the past few days, sources said, though work remains to sort out how a new revenue sharing system will work.
Jackson reiterated Friday that a system “tied to revenue in a meaningful way” remains a priority for the players.
“I think the continued conversations [this week] have helped us chip away at what the concerns are for both sides and how we meet them, how we address them,” she said.
The league and union have offered different systems that would determine player salaries: The WNBA has proposed that players receive, on average, over 70% of net revenue (revenue after deducting expenses), while the union’s last known offer asked for 26% of gross revenue (revenue before expenses) over the lifetime of the agreement.
The union previously bristled at the league’s proposal to give players less than 15% of gross revenue, while the WNBA has called the union’s proposals “unrealistic” and claimed they would result in hundreds of millions of dollars in losses.
The sides exchanged Year 1 salary caps, according to the latest known numbers, of $6.2 million (not including revenue sharing payments) from the league and about $9.5 million from the players.
“Now we have to continue to do the dance and see where that nets out,” Jackson said.
WNBPA vice president Napheesa Collier joined the in-person bargaining Friday evening, while fellow executive committee members Brianna Turner and Alysha Clark, who were present earlier in the week, have departed.
