WNBA travel woes persist. Besides charters, what are the answers?

It was 2018, and the fourth overall pick in the recent WNBA draft met with Women’s National Basketball Player Association representatives, who discussed some of the challenges of league travel. “Well, I lived in Connecticut for four years,” she thought, “and travel was never a problem.” “Charters,” Williams says, “change everything.” It’s well documented that WNBA teams do not fly charter to the vast majority of their games, differentiating the league from most other major North American professional sports. “We’ve never said all teams must be flying charter that needs to be a requirement,” Jackson says. Jackson also said that during the NBA’s most recent CBA negotiations, which concluded earlier this spring, the WNBPA asked the NBPA to put forward a proposal that would repurpose a portion of the annual player fine and suspension money, which normally gets distributed to charitable organizations, and use a portion of it to fund two WNBA matters: defraying some costs of charter travel and helping reimburse current players for a few mental health appointments per year, which insurance may not always cover. “Because we’re a growth property now.” Still, Engelbert says that to afford a full charter program it needs a “significant revenue source,” with the media rights being among the leading funding options.