The AP's Doug Feinberg reports the WNBA and WNBPA Thursday night agreed to a new eight-year CBA, pending approval by the league BOG. The deal "allows both sides to opt out after the sixth season." The "biggest change in the deal is an increase by one in the team's maximum roster size to 12." Another change is that teams now can offer players a "time off bonus," meaning clubs will have "up to $50,000 to divide up among players who play less than three months overseas" (AP, 3/7).
ID, PLEASE: In Toronto, Doug Smith notes NBA Commissioner Adam Silver's reasoning for wanting to increase the league's minimum age to 20 from 19 "is hard to debate." Silver has indicated that the NBA "would be better served with older rookies whose bodies are a year more developed, who are presumably more mature as young men." He also contends that the NCAA "would be better served, competitively and in the area of marketing, by knowing that so-called 'student-athletes' were to spend two years at university rather than one." Smith asks, "At some point, wouldn't the players' association want to protect its current dues-paying members and want more responsible, professional grownup to join its ranks?" (TORONTO STAR, 3/7).
THE FLIGHT OF THE CONCORDE: The WALL STREET JOURNAL's Christian Sylt reported F1 CEO Bernie Ecclestone recently "signaled the end of years of negotiations with F1 teams by saying the sport no longer needs the Concorde Agreement, the contract which has set its terms" since '81. The previous Concorde ran from '08-12. Since then, Ecclestone, F1's 11 teams and its governing body, the FIA, "have been in regular talks about a new agreement as all three parties have to sign it." The Concorde "committed the teams to race and governed all commercial aspects of the series from how much prize money the teams received to how many minutes of footage they can use on their websites" (WSJ.com, 3/6).
SLOW BUT STEADY: SNY's Jonas Schwartz said this has been a "buzz-inducing season ... for the NHL." Schwartz: "Normally, nobody cares about the NHL. But with the Stadium Series, the Olympics, (Blues RW and Olympic hero) T.J. Oshie and now the trade deadline, hockey has appeared on the back page twice this month." That is the "most buzz they've had in forever" ("Daily News Live," SNY, 3/6).
