The 2025 season is over, with ‘healthy’ Aces clinching the title in the end. They faced the shorthanded Indiana Fever in the semifinal, and even Mercury’s Satou Sabally missed Game 4 of the WNBA Finals series. While all these injuries over the 2025 season impacted the league, the WNBPA president, Nneka Ogwumike, spoke about potential health risks in the upcoming seasons.
The league added Golden State Valkyries as a new team in 2025 and will welcome two new teams in 2026. In 2025, teams needed to play 52 more games, but the league could add just four extra days, which turned out to be a massive disaster following multiple injuries to many star players. Keeping this in mind, the 6-foot-2 forward lashed out at the schedule.
Nneka Ogwumike Criticizes Increasingly Congested Schedule
The 2012 rookie spent 14 years in the league and experienced the change in the WNBA’s popularity and all the developments that came along with it. Now the WNBA is looking to add five more franchises in the next five seasons, which would make it an 18-team league.
But this number will also increase the number of games played, which, as per the 2016 champion, will hamper players’ health. She pointed out that earlier players were playing 22 games and now quickly adapted to a 44-game season.
“I went back and did a very rudimentary research … For the span of maybe like 8 to 10 years, we were playing 36 games, I think. And then we went one year to 22 ( the COVID year), and then we went 38, 40, 44 real quick. In a span of four years, we have gone from playing 36 games to 44 games. And now, they have a game tonight. In the past, [if] they win tonight, they would have won. [But] they still got to win 2 more games. Phoenix still got to win 5 more games,” the Storm star asserted.
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Ogwumike is not the only one who thinks that the number of games would affect players’ health; former player Rebecca Lobo also pointed out tight schedules as the main reason for many players’ injuries. But as WNBPA president, the schedule is just one of the topics of discussion in the CBA negotiations. She discussed a potential transformative shift with the WNBA’s rise and the league’s contradictory developments.
Nneka Ogwumike Supported Napheesa Collier’s Cathy Engelbert Criticism
The WNBPA vice president, Napheesa Collier, took the initiative to open up the ‘bad situation’ in the league. Her criticism of Cathy Engelbert’s accountability was a significant blow to the status of the CBA negotiations. The WNPBA president also showed support for the Lynx forward, praising her leadership qualities.
“I agreed with what Napheesa said. I think everybody has a way of communicating, and I think she really spoke a lot of the sentiments that the players had been expressing. She took it upon herself to use her platform in a way that was monumental and is going to contribute to the transformational change that we’re going to see. I think that there was still much to be wanted from Cathy’s comments,” The veteran forward added.
With the difference between the top management of WNBA and WNBPA, the CBA talks are currently on hold. Many fans are even concerned about a potential lockdown for the upcoming season.