Updated March 24, 2026, 6:21 p.m. ET
Last week, reports surfaced that the WNBA and WNBPA had come to terms on a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) in what was a huge win for the players, as the salary cap exploded, and with it, potential WNBA player salaries.
Here’s how some of the most important numbers break down, according to ESPN:
Players will be paid more than ever, with the salary cap starting at $7 million (up from $1.5 million in 2025) and the supermax starting at $1.4 million ($249,244 in 2025), sources told ESPN’s Shams Charania. The average salary will be around $600,000 ($120,000 in 2025), with the minimum salary surpassing $300,000 ($66,079 in 2025), sources told Charania.
As a fun exercise, we decided to take a look at what these numbers would look like in NBA terms, that is, what they would be if the NBA’s current CBA experienced a similar leap to the one the WNBA just achieved.
For starters, the WNBA’s salary cap jumping from a measly $1.5 million to $7 million amounts to a mind-boggling 367 percent increase. In NBA terms, that would be like the salary cap jumping from its current $141 million figure (we’re rounding up a bit from $140.588 million to keep things as simple as possible here) to $659 million. When put like that, it shows how massive the WNBA salary cap spike is. (At the same time, Tyus Jones will make $7 million this season, i.e., a WNBA team’s entire salary cap in 2026-27, so the difference between the NBA and WNBA when it comes to salaries is still… stark, to say the least.)
Next, the super-max contracts. Prior to this season, the WNBA’s super-max deal was worth roughly $249,000. But under the league’s new CBA, the super-max will be around $1.4 million, a 462 percent increase. The NBA equivalent would be Stephen Curry’s current super-max of $59.6 million for 2025-26, jumping to around $335 million for this season alone – a figure that would amount to being roughly 2.4 times the NBA’s current salary cap.
Absurd.
Even the WNBA’s minimum salaries have seen a huge uptick. Previously, the league’s minimum salary was worth a paltry $66,000 per year. For reference, reigning NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s super-max contract extension (worth four years, $285 million) will pay him on average $212,000-plus per day. Now, the WNBA’s minimum salary will be worth $300,000 per season, an increase of 354 percent. If the NBA’s current minimum salary made a similar jump, it would go from being $1.1 million per year to $5 million per season.
All in all, the WNBA’s new CBA is a momentous occasion, as the league’s players are now set to earn a far more reasonable salary, much more becoming of professional athletes.
And that’s without us even mentioning all of the additional perks in the league’s new CBA, including but not limited to improved air travel for away games, improved standards for team facilities, expanded team staffs (including more nutritionists, physicians and athletic trainers), salary cap exceptions for pregnant players (such as pregnant player trade consent) and other financials, such as one-time recognition payments for retiring players based on years of service, ranging up to being worth $100,000.
Now, we’re just looking forward to watching the likes of A’ja Wilson, Alyssa Thomas, Napheesa Collier,Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers ball out in 2026-27.