The 2026 WNBA season is finally set to tip off on schedule after months of uncertainty. The league and the Women's National Basketball PLayers Association (WNBPA) reached a verbal agreement on the terms of a new collective bargaining agreement early Wednesday morning. There is no formal terms sheet yet and the agreement needs to be ratified by both the WNBA board of governors and the players. But there is light at the end of the tunnel.
Wednesday's agreement caps over a week of late-night negotiations between both sides. These marathon negotiating sessions lasted 12+ hours over each of the past eight days. Revenue sharing was one of the biggest obstacles in negotiations along with player housing.
WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert confirmed on Wednesday that these extended negotiations avoided any impacts to the 2026 schedule, per ESPN's Alexa Philippou.
The 2026 WNBA Draft is scheduled to take place on Monday April 13th. After that, training camp opens less than one week later on April 19th. Next preseason games will begin on April 25th, following by the tip off of the regular season on Friday May 8th.
But there is a lot to get done before any of these dates.
First, both sides need to ratify the new CBA agreement. Then the WNBA can get to work on fitting an entire offseason's worth of activity into just a handful of weeks.
The WNBA will hold an expansion draft for two new teams, the Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo, that will join the league during the 2026 season. There also needs to be time for WNBA free agency, which includes more than 100 veteran players on the open market.
It is great news that the 2026 WNBA season is scheduled to proceed as planned.
