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It took over six weeks, but the WNBA finally countered the last proposal sent in by the Women’s National Basketball Player’s Association. In case you haven’t been following along closely, the holdup was that the league didn’t feel that the last PA proposal was different enough to merit a counter, and was basically waiting for the union to blink and send in a different one that had more concessions in it. Which is cute since it’s not like the WNBA has exactly been willing to concede much, to the point that, in December, the players gave the bargaining team strike authorization with 93 percent of the members voting, and 98 percent of those voting to authorize one if the seven-player executive committee deemed it necessary.
Anyway. Not every detail of the new proposal is known, but there were at least some concessions from the league this time around. Namely, the league moved on one of the WNBPA’s priorities: housing. Per ESPN’s sources, players on a league-minimum salary or zero years of service would be provided with a one-bedroom apartment, while developmental players would get a studio apartment. While housing has been part of the WNBA collective bargaining agreement since the first was ratified in 1999, the current CBA has “one-bedroom apartment or a stipend” language, so this would be an update.
What’s a little curious, though, is that the WNBA only offered this through the first three years of the CBA, meaning that the housing would no longer be provided after 2028. That might have something to do with concessions for higher pay, meaning, the league believes players, even minimum salary ones, will be in a position to pay for their own housing at that point without league assistance once those figures ramp up. Given the league’s minimum salary in 2025 was $66,079, and even in the WNBA’s lacking counterproposals the minimum shoots up over $225,000 — close to the previous supermax salary of $249,000 — this seems like the most likely explanation for rescinding the assist in the future.
Those developmental players, by the way, were a concession from the previous slate of proposals: the union is attempting to expand rosters a bit, since the WNBA’s small size means that second-round draft picks don’t even necessarily stick on a roster throughout the year or even make it out of camps and into the regular season.
Front Office Sports reported that the WNBA also shifted a little bit on the revenue-sharing issue that is at the heart of disagreement between the two sides, but it doesn’t seem as if that was a meaningful change:
In its latest proposal, the league made marginal changes to its proposed revenue sharing percentage, sources familiar with negotiations told Front Office Sports. According to these same sources, the league is still proposing the same revenue sharing system.
That WNBA’s proposed revenue share percentage still does not meet or exceed 15% of total league revenue, sources told FOS. The league’s proposed salary cap increased from $5 million to $5.65 million.
The league wants to base revenue-sharing dollars on net revenue, meaning, after it has accounted for a ton of spending, while the union is seeking to base it on gross revenue. Which is why the league can suggest sharing 70 percent of the revenue while the players ask for 30 percent and the second number is actually the larger one.
The different is not small: the league’s $5.65 million salary cap based on net revenue pales in comparison to the $10.5 million the players are proposing based on gross revenue. But the fact that there was any movement at all here after six weeks of trying to make the players negotiate against themselves is a positive, however small. We’ll have to wait to see how the players feel about this, if they see it as constructive or not, but that there was any movement at all, in multiple senses of the word, is a start, at least.
The Kyle Tucker signing made some MLB owners very angry, angry enough to ensure that they would demand a salary cap in the coming collective bargaining sessions in 2026. It makes for a good headline — and absolutely needed to be reported, as it was — but as I got into over at Baseball Prospectus, it doesn’t necessarily mean anything is different now than it was pre-Tucker the Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder.
A sample:
Sure, the owners can push for a salary cap. It wouldn’t be the first time, and it won’t be the last, either. But there are a few important things to consider here before sounding the alarms for the 2027 season and its chances of being played. First is that it’s unclear how many owners have been sent into this rage spiral, which means it’s also not clear how many of them actually want a cap. A cap sounds nice and all until the owners remember that a few things need to be determined before one can be implemented. What the floor that would go with a cap would look like, for instance, which will absolutely cost a number of teams more money per year than they were already spending—the ones most interested in a salary cap, of course—but there is also the fact that what exactly constitutes “baseball revenue” would be up for debate.
…
What’s still most likely at this point, anger at the Tucker deal or no, is that the owners who want a cap keep pushing for a bit to get one, but it just doesn’t gain traction. The timing isn’t right—the broadcasting bonanza is too potentially lucrative to risk. It’s something that can be tabled until next time, while the focus on the present is on figuring out a new model of revenue-sharing that solves some of the problem by separating the Dodgers from some of their money, and having that money go to the teams that are doing the whining. Hey, teams like the Dodgers and Red Sox are already on board with the concept of revamped revenue-sharing, and clubs like the Pirates are already acting like it’s a thing that’s going to happen.
I believe there are owners who genuinely want a cap. I also believe there are owners who have not fully considered what having a cap would mean for them, in terms of having to argue with the MLBPA again and again about what actually constitutes baseball revenue. To go back to the WNBA again for a second, there has been a salary cap in place there for ages, and now that the players are in a position where they have more bargaining power, the two sides are arguing about what should count as revenue toward revenue sharing. There is much more money involved in MLB’s side, and just as significant of a grift — hello, baseball stadiums that are also real estate bonanzas of “non-baseball” revenue.
And there is also that the players have called a cap a non-starter since the days of Marvin Miller. Expanded revenue-sharing between teams, to balance out the massive revenue streams of the Dodgers, Yankees, Mets, Red Sox and so on, remains the most workable solution for a 2027 season and CBA that will actually serve to lift up the franchises that do make less. Demanding a cap doesn’t mean there will be one — it doesn’t even mean there will be a serious proposal with one. It’s news, but not necessarily any you have to fear.
I’m going to put the entirety of this Associated Press news item here since it’s short and faster to just show you.
Major League Baseball players have agreed to let a tech company create AI characters of themselves that can chat and interact with fans.
Under an agreement announced Thursday between Genies and MLB Players Inc., the business affiliate of the players’ association, AI avatars of top stars will be created that can have conversations with fans. Each avatar will reflect a player’s voice and interests.
Genies will have the ability to charge for chat interactions, in-app experiences and digital goods.
The company could not say which players will initially be available as avatars.
There is such a thing as going a little too hard to secure whatever bag is in front of you, and this sure feels like one of those moments. “Each avatar will reflect a player’s voice and interests” is maybe not the greatest thing in the world considering what we know about a lot of players’ voice and interests — hey, I’m pro-labor, but let’s be real here, the world doesn’t need a Blake Treinen Bot in it. Or a Matt Shaw. No, I didn’t forget to type “Bot” there.
Yes, Genies has been making these sorts of things for celebrities already, and the MLB avatars are not likely to have the problems inherent to something like Grok in that the system won’t have a technofascist tweaking it to make it love Hitler more and women less every time he feels sad. But if we’re going with player’s voice and interests, then we’re going to really need Genie to try to get these avatars to stick to sports. Otherwise it’s going to be a lot of Hulk Hogan-ass “say your prayers, take your vitamins” ads where “vitamins” are “raw milk”. More like MAHAvatars.
Why couldn’t we have just had a Mike Trout weather app instead?
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