For the first time in its 28-year history, the WNBA will offer charter flights to all twelve teams across the league. The league is expected to fully implement the program on Tuesday, exactly one week after the regular season.
“The decision to introduce charters is not only the right thing to do, but it is also good for the company because it demonstrates management’s willingness to invest in the players. It is both,” said WNBPA director Terri Jackson via email to CBS Sports. last week. “And ‘competitive advantage’ had nothing to do with it.”
While the final program is what players have loudly pushed for, especially during their 2020 CBA negotiations with the WNBA, the execution before full implementation this week has left players frustrated. CBS Sports gathered responses from the WNBA, players, team representatives and the PA ahead of the rollout of the full charter flight program.
Before this season, charter flights were considered an unfair competitive advantage and banned by individual teams. Charter flights were also deemed too expensive to implement across the league. According to Article XI, Section 4 the current CBA requires all teams to travel premium economy or a similar increased bus fare for all competition travel.
Although the recent CBA was widely regarded as a huge improvement, improving travel remained at the top of the list, alongside higher salaries.
“During the negotiations on the current CBA for 2020 and each off-season thereafter, we made proposals that aimed to phase in charter trips (for all teams during the regular season) over time by not restricting teams require but allow to charter,” Jackson said. .
At the time, players mainly spoke out about traveling as a safety risk Brittney Griner returned to competition after her unlawful detention in Russia. Despite the constant push for charter flights by the players, Jackson said the league’s decision to implement a full charter program this year was a surprise.
At the 2024 WNBA Draft, league commissioner Cathy Engelbert announced that the charter program would be expanded to all teams competing in back-to-back games in the regular season, and would be used again in the playoffs. Less than a month later, during a meeting attended by a handful of media members, Engelbert stated that charter flights would arrive during the 2024 season. Two days later, the league announced that the program would be rolled out “as soon as possible for the 2024 and 2025 seasons.”
“I am very pleased to see a significant change in policy that will allow and offer charter travel among all teams throughout the 2024 season and into the future,” WNBPA President Nneka Ogwumike said in a statement carried by CBS Sports on 7 May received. to the players, I express my appreciation and support for a bold move by the commissioner and team governors, which shows that they understand and value the health and safety of the players. It’s time to be transformative. It’s time to bet on women. “
A week later, only two of the five teams traveling on opening night were cleared to charter.
“It’s tough with the season starting today and we’re still trying to figure out those kinks,” said Connecticut Sun guard Dijonai Carrington told CBS Sports on May 14. “But some teams haven’t realized it yet. I don’t know. They’re just not happy about it, especially as a member of the players’ union.”
Carrington, the WNBPA representative for the Sun, added that while there was a players-only meeting to clarify the charters, she was still unclear on the details.
On May 14, CBS Sports learned from a source that teams were being asked to fill out a charter request during the final week of the WNBA preseason. Teams were notified the weekend prior to opening night if they had been awarded charters for their first road game of the season. The same team representative stated that they had submitted travel requests for the entire season, although it was unclear when they would be notified of their full charter schedule.
The WNBA said Thursday that it expects “all teams to have charter flights in place by May 21.” The league would not comment on how many teams could fly a charter ahead of the full league rollout that begins Tuesday.
At least two teams — Indiana and Minnesota on May 14 — traveled by charter in the first week of the season. Without a doubt, six days is a short time to fine-tune logistics, and while the WNBPA reported that players had been told before the announcement that Engelbert had been working on a charter flight deal, it is unclear when the league was able to coordinate charter flights for the first 14 games of the season.
There are undoubtedly a lot of moving parts, but that still left players wondering how the league determined which teams would get priority.
At least some of the confusion surrounding the charter flight rollout may be due to the fact that the program was implemented without any formal changes to the existing collective bargaining agreement.
In the past, teams have been fined for using charters, such as the New York Liberty, who paid to charter their players five times during the second half of the 2022 season, as well as during a team bonding trip to Napa Valley.
“Travel is a CBA matter, and this new change will need to be in writing in the form of a side letter agreement with the Union,” Jackson said. “Corresponding policies and procedures will also need to be put in writing and distributed so that everyone knows What expect and when.”
In the absence of changes or formal negotiations, players wondered why charters were considered an unfair competitive advantage in the past, but not during the early-season rollout.
“I still don’t understand it, to be honest,” Carrington told CBS Sports on May 14.
Despite the league having a player town hall, Carrington and others were left with questions about the charter rollout.
For now, the league is handling the charter program, although Jackson says once an amendment is added to the current CBA, or fully implemented in the next CBA, charter flights could fall under team responsibilities.
“Over the years, we have heard from employees of more than a few teams that team travel should be managed at the team level, and that it is already over-regulated at the league level,” Jackson said.
A team representative told CBS Sports that they are responsible for all commercial travel and ground transportation to and from league-coordinated charter flights.
The charter flight schedule was indeed bumpy, as Engelbert told the players. While players have raised valid concerns, moving away from commercial flights also bodes well not only for player safety, but for the current and future valuation of a league heading into its third decade of existence.
“We’ve been working on this for four years to build a long-term, sustainable economic model to finance it, because that’s what you need. And now we’re really confident as our shares have risen,” Engelbert said in an interview during the Fever at Liberty game Saturday afternoon. “Now it’s time to do it… so proud that we can do it for the players.”
Just a week into the season, the WNBA saw record valuations for Caitlin Clark’s debut game at Connecticut and the Liberty made a $2 million profit in ticket sales for Saturday’s 91-80 victory over the Indiana Fever. Sales, attendance and viewership have continued to rise since the 2020 season rookie stars like Clark, Angel Reese and Cameron Brink will lead the way for the next milestones in the competition.
What does that mean for the players? Both the league and the PA have until November to opt out of the current CBA 2023 MVP Breanna Stewart hopes the players will do that.
“Now that the commissioner has addressed or is working to address the travel issues, we are hopeful that the league and teams will meet us at the bargaining table at the right time, prepared for transformational changes, including increasing player salaries. Jackson said.