MEET THE FIRST COACH IN TORONTO TEMPO HISTORY

Sandy Brondello is back in the game.

A month after her contract was not renewed with the New York Liberty, the two time WNBA championship winning head coach is back. And she’s heading North.

On October 22, The IX Sports broke the news that the Toronto Tempo will be hiring Brondello to be the first head coach in team history. Brondello will be joining a Tempo franchise that is looking to establish a good foundation and show players that their franchise is a good place for them to play in.

It’s pretty rare for expansion teams to hire recent championship winning head coaches, and the Tempo hopes Brondello can build their program the right way. Sandy is a coach that is beloved across the league and someone that tends to get the most out of her players.

Like everyone else in the WNBA, the Tempo are waiting for the Collective Bargaining Agreement to be ratified so they can properly prepare for the expansion draft. They might be stuck waiting a while.

More on that in a bit.

FROM THE COLLEGE RANKS TO THE PROS

The Dallas Wings have their eyes on a new head coach.

Mitchell Northam of SB Nation first reported on October 23 that the Dallas Wings were closing in on hiring head coach Jose Fernandez from the University of South Florida. If the agreement goes through, he will take over after Chris Koclanes was fired after one season in Dallas.

Although nothing is official as of this writing, the team published a statement on social media confirming that Fernandez will be moving on to the WNBA.

Michele Woods-Baxter will serve as interim head coach for USF this season.

With Fernandez, the Wings are looking to build a sustainable franchise that

“Sources told ESPN that the Wings were looking for a candidate with significant head coaching experience and a proven track record for sustained success, as well as someone with an international reach.”

We’ve started to see the Wings devote more of their resources to infrastructure. The team has a new practice facility set to open in 2026. They are also due to move into a new arena in the coming years, although the status of that is up in the air.

In the last edition of the WBB Roundup, we discussed an emerging trend of new WNBA coaches having NBA experience coming in. We forgot to mention another trend that’s been occurring as well. With the hiring of Karl Smesko and Lynne Roberts in 2024, we’ve seen W teams go into the college ranks and recruit coaches to join the pros. The college landscape is constantly shifting, and it’s something Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve spoke about during the 2024 Finals

As more money and prestige comes into the WNBA, so will the amount of people that look to join the league. It’s a great sign that so many talented coaches want to join the WNBA and be a part of what the league is building. With new faces comes new perspectives and ideas, and it’ll be fascinating to see if some more college coaches make the leap.

SHARING IS CARING

We are officially one week away from the WNBA CBA expiring, and it appears we are nowhere close to an agreement.

Before his week was ruined by gambling shenanigans, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver joined NBC’s Today Show on October 21 to talk NBA business. He was asked about the WNBA’s CBA and specifically the revenue share aspect of it, and the Commissioner gave a pretty interesting answer:

“‘Share’ isn’t the right way to look at it because there’s so much more revenue in the NBA. I think you should look at it in absolute numbers in terms of what they’re making. And they are going to get a big increase in this cycle of collective bargaining, and they deserve it.”

It should be noted that players currently receive around nine percent of the revenue share, a number FAR below the 50 percent their peers in the NBA receive.

As was recently reported, the league has proposed a veteran’s minimum salary increase up to $300k and maximum salaries around $850k. Although it represents a jump, it doesn’t get to the root of players’ concerns about the revenue share, among other things.

Silver’s comments were derided in many circles, and the WNBPA put out a social media post that tagged Silver, saying “Don’t want to share?” They expanded on that and laid bare what the big problem is with Silver, Cathy Engelbert, and the league’s thought process throughout this saga.

“What the league and teams are really trying to do,” WNBPA President Teri Carmichael Jackson said, “is not only limit the cost of labor but also contain it through an artificial salary system that isn’t tied to the business the players are building in any real or meaningful way.”

The league office decided to respond

Well, alright.

It’s likely both sides will agree to an extension so negotiations can continue, but it appears we’ll be in for a bumpy, bumpy ride. As the players have said, there are a lot of big ticket items such as pensions for retired players, family benefits, etc. that need to be addressed.

However, the league is insistent on maintaining the current financial model, and that’s a non-starter. This is a chance for the WNBA to build on the current wave of momentum while also ensuring they pay the players in a way that allows them to fully reap the benefits of this growth now and in the future.

Time is of the essence.

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