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There is plenty to love about the new collective bargaining agreement between the WNBA and the WNB Players Association. For one, that there’s a new CBA with wins in it at all is a victory, given that the league’s approach to bargaining was to waste time and then emphasize how little of it was left before an imagined deadline. The union — save a little public setback that was swiftly taken care of and recanted — did an excellent job of sticking together and ignoring the league’s many empty threats about what it could afford and not afford, about how much time was left to come to an agreement why won’t you just agree to what we’ve offered already.
You can read the full list of “key” agreements in the CBA here, but there is also this from the presser the WNBA released, to catch you up in a hurry:
The league’s top players will gain the ability to sign the first multi-million-dollar contracts in WNBA history. Maximum-contract players will earn a salary of $1.4 million in 2026 that is expected to grow to more than $2.4 million by 2032, based on current financial projections. The league’s average salary is expected to be $583,000 in 2026 and increase to over $1 million by 2032. Minimum salaries will range from $270,000 to $300,000 in 2026 (based on years of service) and will range from $340,000 to $380,000 by 2032.
The agreement also establishes a new rookie contract scale that significantly increases salaries for top draft picks, including the No. 1 overall pick in 2026 projected to earn $500,000.
All existing rookie-scale contracts will also be adjusted upward, delivering meaningful pay increases for players at every stage of their careers. The agreement also creates an expedited pathway to maximum-level contracts for players on rookie deals who earn MVP or All-WNBA First or Second Team honors. In addition, starting in 2027, players with seven or more years of service cannot be designated as Core Players.
The deal includes significant investments in the overall player experience, including enhanced standards for team facilities, expanded team staffing requirements, fully codified league-wide charter air travel, first-class travel accommodations, and significantly increased performance bonuses for individual award winners and playoff and Finals participants. It also includes substantial enhancements for retirees and retirement planning, with expanded team contributions to player 401(k) accounts, enhanced benefits for players with children or who are family planning, and recognition payments for WNBA veterans and retired players based on years of service.
The deal also includes an increased minimum roster size of 12 players plus two more roster spots for developmental players, and salary cap exceptions for injured or pregnant players. Fans will also experience more WNBA basketball through an increase of up to 50 games in 2027 and 2028, and up to 52 games in 2029 through 2032.
All of that is great in a way that doesn’t require any further explanation — the new minimum salary is higher than the previous CBA’s maximum salary, and the new player max is $100,000 shy of the previous agreement’s salary cap. The average salary is shooting up to $600,000, and rookie deals are also set to scale in a way that keeps them from being left behind or being overly leveraged by teams trying to avoid spending up to the cap. Olivia Miles waiting a year to leave college for the WNBA looks like a brilliant move now, but also, Paige Bueckers and Caitlin Clark aren’t about to suffer on their existing rookie deals.
The most significant dub, though, is the union getting the league to agree to calculating the salary cap — $7 million in 2026, and expected to scale with revenue to over $10 million by the the end of the seven-year agreement — by “gross” revenue instead of through “net” revenue. What this means is that the salary cap figure is derived from the total revenue of the league, prior to expenses — what this does is eliminate the likelihood of a secret set of calculations used to manipulate revenue figures and keep player salaries down, which has actually been a point of contention in the previous CBA that included revenue-sharing bonuses for players based on the league’s calculations and its power to go “well, actually” about revenue targets.
Now, a 20 percent share of the gross might sound paltry in comparison to what the NBA is getting — that’s more like half of gross revenue — but you have to remember a few things. The WNBA is still very much growing. The list of things that will cost the league money and also keep the league feeling modern and like the top-of-the-line women’s sports league in North America is a long one. The owners still want to make money on this endeavor, when all is accounted for, and the W isn’t as automatically profitable in the way that the NBA and some other sports leagues are. Now, this isn’t trying to lend credence to the idea that the WNBA isn’t profitable (it is) or that it’s hemorrhaging money (it isn’t), but we are talking scale here. And 20 percent gross isn’t where the league should be with the CBA in the long run, but it’s a huge start coming from what was previously a net-based revenue-sharing setup that earned the players some additional dollars for the first time ever just this offseason — around $8 million per team.
The most important thing is that the agreement is based on gross at all, because now that point no longer needs to be argued in future bargaining. “Well, we should switch to net revenue” is not a point that the union would be compelled to bargain over any longer; the percentage of gross now becomes the focal point. In the next CBA, seven years from now (or sooner if the players opt out again), the players could demand a 25 percent gross, or 30 percent, or… you get the idea… depending on where league revenues are at that point. If the WNBA continues to grow in popularity, if it is line for even more dollars from broadcasting and streaming, if ticket sales continue to climb, if revenues continue to soar and the pie itself has grown in a way that allows for bigger slices with everyone still able to get their fill, then that gross will climb.
The bigger and more successful the league is, the riskier it is for the owners to test the players’ willingness to strike to get what they want and deserve. That’s how we ended up here now — imagine where we could be in another six or seven years with the W becoming more and more of a premier league that actually treats its players like they belong to one. The most important thing going forward is that future players remember to fight for their deserved improvements in the same way this generation of players has — getting too comfortable, too complacent, is what set, for instance, the MLBPA back for the better part of a couple of decades before a recent revival in power and demands. The WNBPA has to keep pushing for a better gross, but the thing is, thanks to this CBA, they can do that. And the rest flows from there.
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