After 16 months at the table to negotiate a new CBA, the WNBA and the WNBPA are finally moving with urgency.

Just a day after the Women’s National Basketball Players Association told ESPN that the league has generated enough revenue in 2025 to trigger revenue sharing for the first time in history, more than 50 players, league staffers, and members of the labor relations committee held a virtual meeting. This marked the second time this month that both sides met to discuss the next steps. Their determination to find a common ground as soon as possible is no longer subtle.

According to reports, the league informed the union and its teams that a term sheet for a new CBA must be completed by March 10 in order for the 2026 schedule to remain unaffected. With the season set to begin May 8, the message was clear: progress can no longer be incremental.

The last proposal came from the WNBA, which introduced guaranteed housing for all players in 2026. And while that’s a big win for the players, the league didn’t make any changes to its financial structure on revenue distribution, which remains the key issue in these talks.

However, after Monday’s session, union leadership is expected to regroup internally to determine their next steps, where they will also draft a formal response to the league’s counterproposal sent on Friday.

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As per the union leadership, approximately $16 million in shared revenue has been generated for 2025. Out of that, roughly $8 million will be distributed directly to players who were active this season, while the remaining $8 million will fund league marketing agreements, as outlined in the current agreement.

“This shows our value and how what we’re fighting for makes sense and how we should keep fighting,” WNBPA treasurer Brianna Turner said.

The union also announced that it will distribute $9.25 million in licensing revenue generated since 2020 from jersey sales, trading cards, video games, and other merchandise. These payments will be based on each player’s years of service from 2020 to 2025 and are expected to reach more than 250 current and former players.

“I’m just hopeful that this distribution gives them a little bit of comfort and a lot of confidence in what we’re doing,” WNBPA executive director Terri Jackson said.

“We’ve grown as a union and put our name, image, and likeness into a collective package,” the players’ union president, Nneka Ogwumike, added. “The union exists for us to be able to represent all players, so I think it’s a great way for all players to be able to share in the growth.”

While the revenue-sharing trigger marks a historic milestone for the league and its players, it does little to settle the broader dispute at the heart of these negotiations. Because even with money now being distributed under the current agreement, the two sides remain far apart on how future revenue should be divided, and that gap is where this bargaining battle is truly being fought.

Revenue Sharing Remains the Core Sticking Point in WNBPA & WNBA CBA Talks

The league’s offer, which was submitted on Friday, gave players a provision that did not appear in earlier proposals during these negotiations. But the central dispute between them remains unresolved.

The players are demanding 27.5% of gross revenue across the life of the new agreement, which will begin at 25% in Year 1. Along with that, they also want a salary cap under $9.5 million. However, the WNBA is calling their demand “unrealistic” and wants to follow a model in which players receive 70% of the net revenue (less than 15% of gross revenue) with a $5.65 million salary cap in 2026.

So while that gap is significant, both sides can either adjust their financial models to meet somewhere in between, or the possibility of a work stoppage can become very real. But Ogwumike has made it clear that the “players do not want to strike.”

“Nobody wants a work stoppage. But at the end of the day, we do have to be ready. So as we continue to (negotiate), us being ready is imperative. It’s fair to say that part of (this) announcement is us being ready and displaying that we are ready,” she added.

With the deadline to reach an agreement now positioned two weeks from today if they want to protect the 2026 season’s schedule, the pressure is no longer theoretical. But until both sides agree on how the WNBA’s growth should be shared, this deadline won’t mean much.