The once-cloudy WNBA future is clearing up, as details surrounding Wednesday's CBA deal continue to emerge after days of marathon negotiations.
According to ESPN, this season's salary cap will balloon to $7 million. Even more, with a league minimum salary of $300,000 and supermax contracts starting at $1.4 million, 2026 WNBA paydays will average around $600,000 — up from $120,000 in 2025.
As for revenue sharing — a wedge issue throughout the talks — the players will receive nearly 20% of gross revenue across the CBA's seven-year span.
Current rookie contracts will also scale to the new rookie rates, with the lowest salaries upgraded to at least $300,000.
Now the real work begins, as the league scrambles to execute a two-team expansion draft, college draft, and free agency period before preseason tips off on April 25th.
One big name is already off the free agency market, however, as the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported on Wednesday that the defending champion Aces will offer 2025 MVP A'ja Wilson a supermax deal as soon as possible.
"What we just accomplished is going to change the lives of so many players," Indiana Fever superstar Caitlin Clark said this week. "That's what we set out [to do] from the beginning, was making sure every player felt the change in the CBA, and that's exactly what has happened."
