Players were not pleased at hearing that the league punished the Liberty for chartering an airplane during the 2021 season.
New of the WNBA’s disciplinary action against the Liberty caught the basketball world by storm on Tuesday morning. Unsurprisingly, players throughout the league were not pleased at the latest from the league.
The WNBA considered terminating the Liberty for violating the league’s collective bargaining agreement after team owners Joe and Clara Wu Tsai charted flights for its players, per a Sports Illustrated report by Howard Megdal. The Tsais paid for charter flights both during a Labor Day weekend to Napa and the second half of the 2021 season.
The league’s current collective bargaining agreement bars teams from making such travel accommodations, deeming it as an unfair competitive advantage. The team was ultimately fined $500,000, the largest fine in league history, though the WNBA’s general counsel, Jamin Dershowitz considered stripping the team of “every draft pick you have ever seen” to suspending ownership and even “grounds for termination of the franchise.”
The league’s players took to social media to express their disdain for the WNBA’s punishment. Check out some of the reactions below:
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