{"id":296948,"date":"2025-11-21T05:54:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-21T05:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/296948\/"},"modified":"2025-11-21T05:54:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-21T05:54:10","slug":"wnbas-1-1m-max-offer-was-a-projection-not-a-guarantee","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/296948\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBA\u2019s $1.1M max offer was a projection, not a guarantee"},"content":{"rendered":"

The WNBA\u2019s reported offer of a $1.1M maximum salary<\/a> is more of a projection than a guaranteed number, according to sources familiar with negotiations, and has led the players\u2019 association to make a counterproposal that again purportedly asks for a salary structure tied to a defined percentage of league business.<\/p>\n

Indications are the league has not yet responded to the WNBPA\u2019s counterproposal with just 10 days left before their 30-day negotiating extension<\/a> expires. While there has been good-faith movement and talks are ongoing, those sources said a report this week that the W\u2019s latest offer nearly quadrupled base pay and maximum salaries is misleading.<\/p>\n

The sources who have spoken to players maintain the W\u2019s recent offer of a maximum salary for 2026 \u2014 which would apply to multiple players on each team and increase incrementally each year \u2014 was not a fixed $1.1M at all. Instead, the salary figure was believed to be significantly lower and only grew to $1.1M based off of revenue-share distributions that the league projects it will hit in Year One.<\/p>\n

Other sources said the league office never intended to mislead the players and that the $1.1M number was intended to acquiesce to the players\u2019 desire to have salaries grow as revenues grow. One source simply called it \u201ca game of semantics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, there is a belief among players that the league is still offering a salary capped system with an arbitrary number that grows by a fixed percentage year by year \u2014 along with a separate revenue share system that provides a distribution to players after the season, dependent on meeting certain criteria.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why players want to make it clear the league\u2019s proposed max salary is not a guaranteed $1.1M at all, but a combined total compensation of: salary plus projected revenue share. <\/p>\n

The apparent belief is that there isn\u2019t a defined marriage between player salaries and revenue share–that the two problematically remain distinct and distinguished from each other\u2014and the union would prefer a defined percentage of league business similar to what NBA players have. <\/p>\n

For the recent 2025 season, the maximum salary was roughly $249,000. So, players do acknowledge that the league\u2019s offer \u2014 while not $1.1M \u2014 has risen far from where it was, which could be a positive sign.<\/p>\n

If the two sides cannot reach an agreement by Nov. 30, they can negotiate another extension or continue to talk without one \u2014 although the league could lock the players out or they could strike at any time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The WNBA\u2019s reported offer of a $1.1M maximum salary is more of a projection than a guaranteed number,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296949,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":["post-296948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296948"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296948\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}