Despite their being over forty of the biggest names in the WNBA world, they called the meeting a “missed opportunity”.

Players made their voices heard pregame during the All-Star Game today, with them sporting “pay us what you owe us” shirts.

Players spoke with the media on Friday following the meeting the day before. Last fall, the players decided to opt-out of their current CBA with hopes of having a new CBA in place by October. Players said that they were willing to walk-out out on the season if a new CBA isn’t in effect by then.

The reason for urgency is due to the new expansion teams that will be entering the league. Portland and Toronto are set to be entered into the league in 2026 and if a new CBA isn’t in place, it’s likely their season would be delayed or wouldn’t have enough time to get things in place.

“We’re on a time crunch, no one wants a lockout.” Naphessa Collier from the Minnesota Lynx told reporters. “But at the end of the day, we have to stand firm, and we’re not going to be moved on certain topics. So hopefully the league comes back quickly so that we can get, have more dialogue, more conversations and can get the ball rolling.”

Union president Nneka Ogwumike of the Seattle Storm had high hopes that the meeting between both sides on Thursday would have produced a better outcome.

“This was a very historical way for players to show up, and they understood how big the moment was. Ogwumike said, “We were hoping perhaps more would be yielded given the engagement. I don’t anticipate us having another meeting with that many players involved.”

Players told reporters that both sides seemed to agree on family planning and retirement benefits. But on the main issues, we broke down in a previous article. They are still very far apart, those issues include revenue sharing, salary structure and prioritization.

What does ‘prioritization’ mean? Well it means putting the WNBA first ahead of playing in any other leagues. Including those overseas or the American based leagues including ‘Unrivaled’ which was founded by Naphessa Collier and Breanna Stewart, as well as the Athletes Unlimited.

Unrivaled is set in one city during the months of January-March. Since the leagues introduction in 1997, it’s never been uncommon for players to go earn extra income in the offseason.

These issues were brought up in the last CBA negotiations when league owners wanted stricter restrictions when players enter training camp, till the end of the season.

Gabby Williams said she believes that the WNBA would want to push the players to a year-round commitment. Essentially not allowing them to go play in other leagues in the offseason. But Naphessa Collier said that the salaries offered to the players, don’t support that. Collier said “You can’t have exclusivity without paying for it.”

The players were already concerned about the league’s lack of a prompt response to the union’s offering in February.

The league didn’t respond to that inquiry until June 13th, with the league disagreeing with that claim and said the amended proposal wasn’t receive until April.

“We have strength in numbers,” Breanna Stewart told reporters. “[The] meeting was good for the fact that we could be up the same room as the league and the Board of Governors and that type of thing. But i think, to be frank, it was a wasted opportunity. We could have really kind of gotten into a deeper dive of everything. Based on their most recent proposal, we just aren’t able to get to a place where we’re actually even talking about the same thing. So i think that’s the hardest thing, our first offer and then their counter was, like, black and white.”

Sabrina Ionescu said about the negotiations that took place on Thursday that there wasn’t enough time for substantive progress to be made but she isn’t discouraged.

“We were able to listen to Cathy and her team on how they obviously want the best for us as well, and trying to kind of be able to figure out what that is. Obviously, they want to succeed as much as we do, like we are trying to find a middle ground to where both parties are happy.”

The league has changed a lot since the last CBA was introduced. The league’s financial threshold has continued to grow since 2019 and is expected to hit 1bn in revenue this season.

Golden State Valkyrie’s recently became the WNBA’s 13th team, and the league is planning to expand to 18 teams by 2030.

The valuation of team’s has also skyrocketed since 2019 and since the signing of the new TV deal which is valued at 2.2bn.

“Rev sharing is truly transformational” said Kelsey Plum “We want a piece of the entire pie. We’re a resilient group. We know the unity it takes to be able to get the outcome desired.”