#they also go over like team fines for breaking the cba like the liberty didn't get fined a random amount

[gotham--fc]

I mean yes but please expand

Okay this took me a while but the cba is 350 pages and I read that thing okay like I didn't skim it (okay I skimmed a lot of the numbers part bc the numbers mean dick to me) but I read it okay? Anyways here's all my thots, buckle up it's a long one, I'll put in under a readmore so you can just scroll past if you don't care

Non inclusive language (all players must be women, referring to players as ‘she’ ‘her’ etc, at least one out non binary player in the league, also no definition on what a woman is so afab? Trans women? Unclear)

Teams can only have 6 players with protected salaries (meaning teams still have to pay them if they get hurt or ill or cut etc) only vets can have protected salaries not rooks – rosters are 11-12 which means half the team can get cut without pay for any reason and lose their salary (this isn’t something that will ever be changed and probably is standard and/or better than other sports leagues but it is worth mentioning)

By agreeing upon provisions (to be set forth in Exhibit 3 to a Standard Player Contract) limiting or eliminating the player’s right to receive her Base Salary (in accordance with Sections 6(a)(i)(y) and 6(c) of this Article) when the player’s disability or unfitness to play skilled basketball is caused by the re-injury of one or more injuries sustained prior to, or by the aggravation of one or more conditions that existed prior to, the execution of the Standard Player Contract providing for such Base Salary – players that aggravate an old injury can get cut without pay and teams that sign players hurt can cut them without pay? this isn’t a problem for established players bc teams will deal with an injury prone player if they’re good enough when healthy, but it’s not good for rookies/unestablished players who won’t get the same grace

Players with less than 6 years experience can’t get trade bonuses from the team trading for them – kinda fucked up

Players base salaries not protected if they’re injured playing overseas, fine for top players bc teams won’t cut them and will pay for their rehab to get them back for wnba but for rooks/not established vets they get kinda fucked over also the fucked over players are the ones who need to play in Europe most bc they don’t make shit, like the players that this won’t affect make enough to not need to play in Europe if they really don’t want to

Max/min salaries should be determined by percentage of revenue, while salaries are better than they were and they go up each year they’re not connected to league revenue at all so league could make shit ton more money this year but players salaries next year won’t reflect that, also unclear where tf the numbers come from? Like how did they determine this is the salary cap # and this is how much it’ll increase like are these arbitrary numbers or is there logic behind them

Low salary cap = no roster space

Players given coach airline tickets from city they reside to city they play and back, and to cities they are traded to (it literally says coach even if teams wanted to give players better seats they cannot)

No airline ticket provided if travel is less than 200 miles (but travel still paid for but like bus/train/gas money)

All air travel provided by the Team (including, but not limited to, travel between games) will be, if available on the Team-chosen flights at the time of booking, premium economy (or similar enhanced coach fare) – no chartered flights hence why nyl was fined and why mercury can’t use their own plane, this is literally written in the cba that players agreed to who are now making a big stink about cathy hating to see a bad bitch winning when the bad bitches in question did this to themselves

Players are paid 25% of league revenue and 50% of incremental value. This is where it gets confusing for some ppl because they see 50% and assume it's 50% of total revenue. It's not. nba players for example make 50% of all league revenue, so if the nba makes hypothetically 600k in revenue then players get 300k. In the wnba on the other hand, if the league expects to make 500k then actually makes 600k, the players don't get 300k, they get 25% of 500k+50% of 100k, so that would be 125k+50k. It's significantly less revenue sharing than the nba has which is what the players have been fighting for, like Kelsey Plum said we don't want to be paid the same salaries as the nba we want the same percent of revenue.

Players required to attend media things, not a max number of things a season but whenever the team/league wants, a max number of things within certain number of days, but players really have no control over their media appearances for the team/league – why angel reese and Chicago sky fined, really takes away player freedom/autonomy and you know that certain players are going to do media more often bc they’re ‘big names’ meaning they do so much extra labour than their teammates (a’ja doing what seems like every aces press conference??), and it means a player can't back out of media if they're not up for it like if they're tired, hurt, physically or mentally not at 100% they can't say sorry coach not today or they and the team gets fined

“Player Attributes” means a player’s name, nickname, Picture, portrait, image, signature, voice or other identifiable attributes and, to the extent that she has rights therein, biographical data” league has rights to license any player attributes and players are not allowed to license their attributes, players cannot permit anyone other than the league to manufacture products bearing player attributes, and not allowed to appear promos or ads for any entity that is not a wnba sponsor or affiliate (so no individual sponsors with anyone not associated with the league) – this is probably a general thing in all leagues but it just feels icky

Must have minimum of 11 and max of 12 players on roster, nba has 14-15 roster – again this is salary cap related but even with the increasing salary cap teams can only have a max 12 players so even if the salary cap gets upped that doesn’t equal to more roster spots

Players aren’t allowed to strike, but teams aren’t allowed to lockout players – no lockout is good since it can be used to essentially force players into agreements that are league/team beneficial and teams/leagues can use lockouts to turn media and fans against players (mlb lockout where teams were like the players won’t play we’re willing to play but the players won’t in an attempt to villainize them and the players being like nah bro we’re ready to play they’re not ready to come to the table), but no strike… icky

Also this is not an issue I have with the cba I actually like it but "No Team shall make any direct or indirect payment of any money, property, investments, loans, or anything else of value to: (i) any basketball team not in the WNBA, or (ii) any other entity, organization, representative, or person, for the purpose of inducing a player to enter into a Player Contract or in connection with receiving the right to enter into a Player Contract." Actual quote from the cba I just want to bring up because this is why the wnba is investigating the aces 100k sponsorship bc they're essentially questioning if that money is actually coming from marky mark himself or if that money was used to incentivize players to sign contracts below market value anyways just wanted to point that out, I'm all for bagging on commissioners when they suck but in this case cathy isn't doing this bc she hates vegas she's doing this bc the aces might be breaking the cba

Anyways, that's all my thots on the cba, it's definitely better than it was and there's some good stuff in there that does help protect players, but there's also a lot that's icky and stuff that I'm disappointed to see the players agree to and I understand that players have to make concessions and compromise on stuff, but there's stuff in there (like having to be available for media, the chartered flights debacle, the aces sponsorship debacle) which has been causing a big stink that players and fans obviously have issues with which are written into the cba that players agreed to, so I think after 2027 (when this cba expires) that there's some things the players association needs to take a hard stance on and not budge