Hours before Sunday’s Gold Medal game of the 2026 FIBA Women’s World Cup, discussion online began about why exactly the WNBA had been on pause, and if the league itself had any control over its schedule.
“So the WNBA inexplicably halted their season (with real momentum BTW) to send everyone to the FIBA World Cup,” Bill Simmons, the founder of The Ringer, wrote on X.
The women’s basketball community’s response to Simmons’ post was focused on the fact that the WNBA doesn’t have much control over the World Cup schedule. Although, some thought Simmons’ point was more about if WNBA had to comply with FIBA and let its players go in the first place.
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The discussion served as a reminder to what the status quo in women’s basketball has historically been for so long: FIBA has set the table for the women’s basketball calendar.
But now, the WNBA finds itself in the middle of breaking the status quo and has acquired more leverage and influence over the women’s basketball calendar than it ever has.
The 2026 World Cup break was something that the WNBA and FIBA agreed to for the first time in history. During all other previous World Cup seasons, the WNBA would simply squeeze its footprint —including its regular season and postseason — into a tight window to adhere to the quadrennial World Cup in September.
This World Cup break — one that’s similar to what happens during each Olympic year — will most likely be a one and done. Instead, FIBA’s Central Board announced in May 2025 that it would reschedule future women’s basketball World Cups to take place in November and December, which is after the WNBA season typically ends in October.
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This decision represents the WNBA’s influence and the league’s recent abilities to influence the women’s basketball calendar, rather than constantly having to adapt to it.
“I think they made it because of W,” Minnesota Lynx wing and Belgian national team mainstay Antonia Delaere told NBC Sports about why she believes FIBA switched the dates of all upcoming World Cups.
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Why did the status quo previously favor FIBA?
When FIBA Secretary General Andreas Zagklis spoke to the media on the day of the gold medal game between Team USA and the French, he made sure to emphasize why the world order for women’s basketball had been the way it was.
“It is not an accident that in an environment of growth where we see several traditional but also non-traditional stakeholders trying to ride the wave,” he said when asked about the global growth of the game. “FIBA has invested more than 70 years in women’s basketball. The NBA has invested 30 years.”
When an organization is around longer, historical precedence can be set.
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For most of the WNBA’s 30 year history, the league has asserted that it allows players to compete against the best players in the world, in part because most of the world’s best players were Americans. This was enough incentive for some international players to come over, especially the Australians.
Aussie Michelle Tims was the first well-known international player in the WNBA’s history, followed by more high-profile players including current Toronto Tempo head coach Sandy Brondello and current Indiana Fever video coordinator Tully Bevilaqua. And then came higher profile stars, Penny Taylor and Lauren Jackson, with Jackson becoming the first international player to win MVP in 2003.
But prestige and the media markets of the WNBA weren’t enough for most international players, especially when the money available wasn’t comparable to what could be earned internationally, and the fact that the league’s media rights deals and corporate sponsorship deals weren’t up to snuff. How could great players be sold on media markets when the media struggled to consistently cover the league?
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When and why the WNBA began to pose a challenge
A few years prior to Commissioner Cathy Engelbert entering the league, some of the WNBA’s main stakeholders and shareholders began to feel the push-and-pull between the league and international play weighing heavily on the growth and economic model of the WNBA.
Some of the league’s best players would routinely show up to training camp late due to their international commitments playing for some of the best leagues in Europe. Let’s take the 2018 Las Vegas Aces for example.
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Both Kelsey Plum and Kayla McBride arrived just days before the 2018 regular season, missing both training camp and the preseason. Their Turkish clubs didn’t end their seasons until after the FIBA sponsored championships and the Turkish domestic playoffs.
“It’s going to take some more time to integrate these people into what we do, so we’re going to be even more behind,” former Aces head coach Bill Laimbeer said at the time.
Imagine if Caitlin Clark and Azzi Fudd weren’t at their own team’s training camps in the spring but instead, were playing across the country.
This was something that many WNBA teams had to endure, especially when the league had to navigate World Cups, Olympic years and international club teams every year.
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As a result, the product on the floor suffered, especially in the beginning of the season when the best players weren’t always playing in the WNBA. This became a major hurdle when it came to franchises being able to make the playoffs and win championships.
Less than a year on the job, Engelbert collectively bargained on behalf of the owners, who were frustrated with the fact that their best players weren’t able to play at the beginning of the season, with late arrivals often leading to more in-season injuries due to year-round play.
As a result, WNBA prioritization was born in the 2020 collective bargaining agreement. The rule states that players with three or less years of experience can arrive past a certain date, which encourages those that are younger to still play in FIBA sanctioned leagues if they choose.
While this was introduced in the 2020 CBA, it wasn’t hard launched until the 2023 and 2024 seasons, when players were fined and then suspended if they couldn’t arrive to training camp on time.
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“We’ve adapted our schedule forever — as long as I’ve been around the league — to FIBA,” current Indiana Fever senior advisor Lin Dunn, told ESPN in April 2022. “How much has FIBA adapted to us? I feel like the owners, the teams, the fans want the WNBA to be No. 1.”
This was the goal but the league didn’t have enough leverage yet, as salaries were still lower than what teams paid overseas and lucrative off-season leagues Unrivaled and Project B were not yet in the picture.
International players were discouraged by their national federations from going over to the WNBA because that would interrupt playing in FIBA sanctioned continental events like EuroBasket and the Asia Cup. These tournaments allow national teams to qualify for FIBA’s two big events: the World Cup and the Olympics.
Once Engelbert got the league through the transitional seasons that came with a global pandemic at the beginning of the 2020s, her focus shifted toward continuing to stabilize the league as a business. Her eyes pointed toward globalization, which was evident when the league announced its capital raise at the beginning of 2022.
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The press release indicated the funds being used to globalize the WNBA and make it more accessible around the world. But to properly globalize, international players needed to be on board and willing to play in the league.
By the fall of that year, tensions were building at the 2022 FIBA World Cup in Sydney, especially since the WNBA schedule had increased its footprint by over a month since the last World Cup.
The Serbian national team head coach Marina Maljković famously rolled her eyes when she mentioned how the WNBA had impacted the schedule of the 2022 World Cup. Because of the WNBA’s newer schedule under the 2020 CBA, there was limited preparation time and a tight schedule that included multiple back-to-back games.
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“Talking to players, they really suffered this season, everywhere,” she said. “Players around the world suffered this season because of tight schedule[s] everywhere.”
|
Year that includes a FIBA World Cup |
Length of WNBA season |
Amount of WNBA regular season games |
Amount of total WNBA playoff games |
|
2010 |
4 months and a day |
34 games |
16 games |
|
2014 |
3 months and 27 days |
34 games |
18 games |
|
2018 |
3 months and 26 days |
34 games |
17 games |
|
2022 |
4 months and 12 days |
36 games |
23 games |
|
2026 |
*Approximately 5 months and 23 days |
44 games |
**29 games |
* There was a first ever FIBA World Cup break where the league was on hiatus from August 31 through September 16. This number is calculated including the break, and it assumes that the 2026 WNBA campaign will end on October 31, the final possible day of the 2026 WNBA Finals.
** This represents the most possible playoff games that could be played in 2026.
That was right before the WNBA’s amenities and facilities arms race began. The 2023 free agency period showed that teams who offered better professional living standards and care were able to sign some of the best players in the WNBA.
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International players like Marine Johannès also took notice and as a result prioritized the Liberty in 2023, which led to the French Federation leaving her off the 2023 EuroBasket roster. But, a paradox still existed. WNBA salaries still weren’t enough to completely keep players from not playing across the world in the WNBA offseason or prioritizing a WNBA franchise instead of their national federation.
The WNBA’s leverage was changing, but not quite enough to really become that No.1 that Dunn prophesied the league could be. Although Eric Thibault, current Minnesota Lynx associate head coach, did see the pathway.
“I think as our league goes in the direction that everybody wants it to go with money, more eyeballs and more teams and all of that, there will be more incentive for the top international players to come over,” Thibault said back in 2023. “And we’ll see the benefit of that.”
The 2026 CBA evened the playing field
Three years later Thibault’s predictions have mostly come true. The 2026 CBA produced player salaries that increased around 400% from the previous season.
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As a result, over 30% of current WNBA players signed to a team are those who come from another country. Three years ago that number hovered a bit over 15%. This season, the WNBA has players from 22 countries while in 2023 that number was around 15.
Curt Miller, General Manager of the Dallas Wings who has been involved in the WNBA since 2015, believes that the new CBA has influenced the number of international players that are seriously valuing the WNBA.
“I think it’s perceived as the best league in the world,” Miller said. “The salaries are better than ever, and the international players want to challenge themselves in the best league in the world. And now financially, there’s an incentive to come.”
As a result, the higher salaries and better amenities from the WNBA — like charter plans and five-star hotels — pushed FIBA to level up too, something that was mentioned by Secretary General Zagklis during his press conference in Berlin.
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“The attention of the central board of FIBA went into providing as good conditions as ever for the players,” he said. “First time single room policy for the players. A fully dedicated hotel, for them 5 stars with their own fitness, their own players lounge, very special areas of course with improvements we made throughout the tournament.”
The future will be about players having “as many opportunities as possible”
FIBA is clearly not the only show in town, but also neither is the WNBA. At the current moment both organizations have to share and work together if they both want representation from the best players on the planet in their competitions and leagues, outside of the rescheduled World Cup.
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“Collaboration is key to creating alignment across the global basketball calendar as we see continued growth and momentum of the women’s game not only in the WNBA but around the world,” a WNBA spokesperson said. “FIBA’s shift of future World Cup competitions to later in the calendar year will allow elite players who compete for both their WNBA teams and national teams to do so with less interruption.”
The condensed global basketball calendar, which has improved, still isn’t quite perfect. Miller looks forward to watching “the powers that be” which includes the FIBA Central Board and WNBA leadership continue to navigate all of the scheduling conflicts.
Wings forward Awak Kuier, a native of Finland, is already looking ahead to 2027, when her home country will co-host the FIBA EuroBasket competition through June— a schedule that will once again overlap with the WNBA season.
Kuier said she appreciates that the WNBA is a league where she can have a different type of connection with fans rather than in Europe. “In the W, it’s more person-based in a way,” she told NBC Sports back in July. “I feel like in the W, we bring out more like the people and the players, their personalities, and what I like to do.”
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But all in all, she wants the most opportunities available to players and sometimes that means having the choice to play or not to.
“We’re all trying to figure out how to navigate, especially with FIBA, the W,” she said. “But personally, I hope they work it out and find a way where we get as many opportunities as possible.”
Valuing the product, which is the players after all, might be the best way forward. The WNBA may not completely control the global calendar, but it no longer has to simply follow it. The proverbial tug of war now looks much more balanced.
