The WNBA is still without a new collective bargaining agreement, and Rebecca Lobo believes the prolonged standoff is beginning to chip away at the public support players once firmly enjoyed.
An early January deadline for a new deal passed without progress, leaving the league and its players negotiating with less than four months remaining before the 2026 season is scheduled to tip off.
While Lobo has long backed players in their push for improved pay and conditions, she now worries that the way the negotiations are being discussed publicly is starting to work against them.
That concern stands in contrast to the atmosphere just a year ago. At All-Star weekend in Indianapolis, players wore shirts reading “Pay Us What You Owe Us,” a moment that spread quickly online and drew loud approval from fans inside the arena.
Later, during the playoffs, union leader and reigning Defensive Player of the Year Napheesa Collier took direct aim at commissioner Cathy Engelbert, saying the league had “the worst leadership in the world.”
According to Lobo, those moments resonated because fans felt the players’ frustration and understood the broader context.
“Coming off of that,” Lobo said, “fan support was 100 percent.”
Why wording is starting to matter more
Speaking this week on the podcast A Touch More, Lobo said her concern is not about players wanting more, but how their demands are being framed as talks drag on.
“Some of the rhetoric I’ve heard from their side has been a little bit troublesome,” she noted.
“When a deal is presented that’s over a million max salary and revenue share, it’s called a ‘slap in the face.’ Just use different words.
“And I’m worried the players might be getting to a point where they’re losing some of the support from the public. And I think that’s been a big part of this all along.”
According to ESPN, the league’s latest proposal would dramatically increase player compensation.
The average salary would rise from roughly $120,000 to more than $530,000, while the maximum salary would jump from just under $250,000 to more than $1.3 million.
Players have reportedly countered with a proposal that includes a salary cap more than twice the league’s offer and have continued to push for the cap to be tied directly to gross revenue, similar to most men’s professional leagues.
Owners, by contrast, want the cap calculated using net revenue, creating one of the central sticking points in the negotiations.
Lobo worries that WNBA players are unlikely to get sympathy from the average fan at home if they continue to call six and seven figure salaries a “slap in the face.”
“As these negotiations have gone on, it feels like some of (the fan support) is waning,” Lobo said.
“And I think some of it has just been the language and the verbiage and that sort of the thing that we’ve heard from the players’ association. I think the players just need to be a little bit more careful with how they’re articulating things.
“Because if you’re working whatever job, a max salary of $1.2 million, average salary of $500,000, if you don’t think it’s fair that’s fine, but don’t call it a slap in the face.”
Read the full article here
