WNBA Players Secure Million-Dollar Salaries in New Collective Bargaining Agreement

For nearly three decades, the WNBA has operated under a basic economic reality: even the league's biggest stars earned less per year than many mid-level corporate managers. That era is over.

The WNBA and the Women's National Basketball Players Association reached a verbal agreement early Wednesday morning on a new collective bargaining agreement that will create the league's first million-dollar players, nearly quintuple the salary cap, and tie player compensation to a meaningful share of league revenue for the first time in the sport's history [1][2][3].

The deal, hammered out in a Midtown Manhattan hotel lobby just before 3 a.m. after more than 100 hours of negotiations over eight consecutive days, ensures the 2026 season will tip off on schedule May 8 — 51 days from now — with two new expansion franchises and a fundamentally different economic model for women's professional basketball [4].

The Numbers: A Quantum Leap

The financial transformation is staggering by any measure. Under the previous CBA, which expired in October 2025, the league's salary cap stood at $1.5 million per team. The new agreement raises that to $7 million — a 367% increase [1][5].

Individual salaries tell an even more dramatic story:

• The supermax salary jumps from $249,244 to approximately $1.4 million — a more than fivefold increase and the first time a WNBA player will earn seven figures from the league alone [1][5]
• The average salary rises from roughly $120,000 to more than $600,000 [1][3]
• The minimum salary leaps from $66,079 to more than $300,000 — meaning even the lowest-paid player in the league will earn more than the previous supermax [1][5]

Source: ESPN / CBS Sports

Data as of Mar 18, 2026CSV

"For the first time, player salaries are tied to a truly meaningful share of league revenue, driving exponential growth in the salary cap, increasing average compensation beyond half a million dollars, and raising the professional standard across facilities, staffing, and support," said WNBPA president Nneka Ogwumike [3][4].

Revenue Sharing: The Real Breakthrough

The headline salary figures, while historic, are downstream of the deal's most consequential provision: revenue sharing. Under the previous CBA, WNBA players received approximately 9.3% of league revenue — a fraction that made the league an outlier among major North American professional sports leagues, where players typically receive between 48% and 51% of revenue [6][7].

The new agreement raises the players' share to an average of nearly 20% across the life of the deal [1][5]. While still well below the NBA's 50/50 split, the shift represents a fundamental change in the league's economic philosophy. Crucially, the revenue-sharing structure means that as league revenues grow — and they are growing rapidly — player compensation will scale with them.

This matters enormously because of what is arriving in 2026: the WNBA's landmark 11-year, $2.2 billion media rights deal with Disney, Amazon Prime Video, and NBCUniversal. The agreement, worth approximately $200 million per year, represents more than a threefold increase from the previous $60 million annual deal [8][9]. With player salaries now pegged to revenue, that influx of media money will flow directly into higher caps and bigger contracts in future seasons.

The Long Road to Agreement

The deal did not come easily. Players opted out of their previous CBA in October 2024, triggering 17 months of negotiations that frequently turned contentious [4][10]. Revenue sharing was the primary sticking point, with the players' union pushing for a share closer to what male athletes receive and the league arguing that the WNBA's economics — it has historically operated at a loss subsidized by the NBA — warranted a more conservative approach.

The negotiations reached a critical juncture in recent weeks. WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert had set a mid-March deadline to finalize a deal or risk disrupting the 2026 season schedule, including expansion drafts for the Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo [10][11]. The final push saw both sides engage in eight straight days of in-person negotiations, with marathon sessions stretching past midnight.

"I think this can be summed up in two words: player empowerment," said WNBPA executive director Terri Carmichael Jackson. "Players coming to the table and standing on business and being reminded of the collective voice and of what it means to be in a union and the power of this union" [3].

Commissioner Engelbert called the agreement "a transformative step forward for players and the league" [4].

Beyond Salaries: Housing, Benefits, and Working Conditions

The CBA addresses grievances that have defined life as a WNBA player for years. Housing — long a sore point, as some players have had to find and pay for their own accommodations in their team's city — has been strengthened with new provisions requiring teams to provide adequate housing [3][4].

The deal also expands resources for family planning and parental leave, enhances retirement benefits, and raises professional standards across team facilities and support staff [3]. Franchise tag restrictions, another contentious issue that limited player movement, were also addressed in the final agreement [4].

These provisions matter because the WNBA has historically asked players to accept conditions that would be unthinkable in men's professional leagues. Players have supplemented their income by playing overseas during the offseason — a practice that has led to safety concerns, as highlighted when Brittney Griner was detained in Russia for nearly 10 months in 2022.

A League Transformed

The new CBA arrives at a moment of unprecedented growth for the WNBA. The 2025 season delivered the league's highest-ever television ratings, with nationally televised games averaging 969,000 viewers — and that was despite star players including Caitlin Clark missing significant time due to injuries [12][13]. Women's basketball revenues are projected to have topped $1 billion in 2025, up from $710 million the prior year [14].

Source: GDELT Project

Data as of Mar 18, 2026CSV

The league is expanding aggressively. The Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo will join as the 14th and 15th franchises in 2026, with Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia already announced for future expansion, ultimately bringing the league to 18 teams [11][15]. Expansion fees have reportedly soared — Portland's ownership group RAJ Sports and Toronto's billionaire owner Larry Tanenbaum paid sums that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago.

Context: Where WNBA Pay Stands in the Sports Landscape

Even with the historic increases, the WNBA's economic reality remains starkly different from men's professional sports. The NBA generated approximately $13 billion in its most recent season; the WNBA earned roughly $200 million — a 65-to-1 ratio [6]. The NBA's salary cap exceeds $140 million per team, dwarfing the WNBA's new $7 million ceiling.

But within women's professional sports, the WNBA's new deal is transformative. The NWSL narrowly beat the WNBA to the milestone of a $1 million salary for a women's team sport athlete, when Portland Thorns forward Sophia Wilson exercised a player option in December [6]. The WNBA's structure, however, is designed to produce far more million-dollar players — potentially every supermax contract holder in the league.

The deal also sets a benchmark that could influence CBA negotiations in other women's leagues. The revenue-sharing model, in particular, establishes a framework that ties player compensation directly to league growth — a principle that women's sports advocates have long argued is the fairest approach to closing the pay gap.

What Happens Next

The verbal agreement is not yet final. Lawyers for both sides must formalize the terms into a written term sheet, expected within days. The agreement then requires ratification by the players and approval by the WNBA's Board of Governors [1][4].

With more than 80% of WNBA players currently free agents, ratification will unlock a frenzy of activity [4]. The league must also conduct an expansion draft to stock the Portland and Toronto rosters, hold the 2026 WNBA Draft on April 13, and open training camps by April 19 — a compressed timeline that underscores how close the labor dispute came to disrupting the season [11].

"This deal is going to be transformational," said WNBPA vice president Breanna Stewart. "It's going to build and help create a system where everybody is getting exactly what they deserve and more, from on the court and off the court aspects. Just excited that we can tell our fans that we're going to be back" [3].

The Bigger Picture

The WNBA's new CBA is more than a labor agreement — it is a statement about the value of women's professional sports in 2026. For a league that launched in 1997 with players earning as little as $15,000 a year, the arrival of million-dollar salaries represents a generational shift.

But the deal's true significance may lie not in the numbers themselves but in the structure. By tying compensation to revenue and locking in a meaningful share for players, the CBA creates a flywheel: as the league grows — through new media deals, expansion, and rising attendance — players share directly in that growth. It is the same model that made NBA players among the highest-paid athletes in the world, and it is now, for the first time, genuinely operative in the WNBA.

The 30th season of the WNBA will begin on May 8 with more teams, more money, and more visibility than ever before. For players who spent years fighting for this moment — in negotiation rooms, on social media, and on the court — the agreement represents vindication. For the league, it is a bet that investing in players will accelerate the growth that made this deal possible in the first place.