By Kevin Pelton
www.espn.in<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-368.png\")
After WNBA players opted out of the CBA in October 2024, virtually no veterans signed contracts that extended into 2026, meaning more than 100 unrestricted
free agents will need to sign contracts this o\u1fffseason. Credit: Ethan Miller\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
Though there\u2019s a long way to go before the WNBA and its players association reach a deal for a new collective bargaining agreement, after months of contentious negotiations, one thing seems certain:<\/p>\n
For the first time in WNBA history, a player will make a $1 million salary in 2026.<\/p>\n
The league\u2019s most recent proposal calls for a $5 million salary cap \u2014 a massive 230% increase \u2014 that will produce some of the largest contracts for American women\u2019s professional athletes across any sport.<\/p>\n
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A proposed 20% max salary for individual players would produce base salaries up to $1 million, with additional escalators based on league revenue that the WNBA estimates would bring their full value to $1.3 million.<\/p>\n
And those numbers could continue to climb. Negotiations are ongoing, with revenue share still a major sticking point between the two sides. But if a $5 million cap is the baseline, the increased salaries that will come along with it will be one of the key triumphs of this CBA.<\/p>\n
With that in mind, let\u2019s take a closer look at the history of the WNBA and other leagues \u2014 including the NBA, which owns and oversees the WNBA, and soccer\u2019s NWSL \u2014 to put those increases into context, as well as understand why players still don\u2019t think they\u2019re being offered what they deserve.<\/p>\n
WNBA salary cap history<\/p>\n
Although the WNBA is heading toward its 30th season, the league only adopted a salary cap in 2003 as part of protracted negotiations on the league\u2019s second CBA. Before that deal, the league signed players to their contracts. From that point, individual teams agreed to contracts as part of the introduction of free agency.<\/p>\n
The first salary cap was $622,000 per team, which the WNBA projects will be barely more than the\u00a0average\u00a0player makes in 2026 under its proposal. Getting there, however, took years of slow progress. The 2003 CBA defined annual increases of 4%, while a new CBA signed with little fanfare in 2008 increased it 6% that season and either 3% or 4% in subsequent years. By 2014, the WNBA had stagnated financially \u2014 the salary cap actually went backward at the start of a new deal and grew just 2% annually. In 2019, the WNBA\u2019s salary cap was still less than $1,000,000.<\/p>\n
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That changed substantially in the most recent CBA, agreed to in January 2020. The cap jumped 30%, far and away the biggest single-season increase in league history to that point, though it went up just 3% each year of that deal. A revenue sharing component based on cumulative league revenue \u2014 the target of which was based on the 2019 season \u2014 never triggered, in large part because the WNBA went without ticket sales during the 2020 campaign, playing on a bubble campus due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and played in front of reduced crowds in many markets to start 2021.<\/p>\n
In that context, the massive jump in the WNBA salary cap in this agreement is really a matter of catching up to the league\u2019s growth. In 2025, the WNBA\u00a0broke its single-season attendance record<\/a>, previously set in 2002 when there were 16 teams. Beyond that, new national TV deals set to begin in 2026 and signed jointly with the NBA\u2019s current deal will bring in\u00a0more than $200 million in annual revenue<\/a>\u00a0before counting WNBA-specific deals with Versant and ION, an eightfold increase from what had been reported in 2019\u00a0when the previous CBA was negotiated<\/a>.<\/p>\n The first $1 million WNBA salary<\/p>\n The WNBA has had a max salary since its inaugural CBA, albeit with the proportion of the cap changing dramatically over that span.<\/p>\n Initially, the max salary of $85,000 was set at 13.7% of the cap in 2003, but raises failed to keep pace. By the end of the 2008-13 CBA, the players\u2019 max was less than 12% of the cap, a limit that stayed in place through 2019. This made WNBA superstars\u00a0easily the best value in sports<\/a>. It also compressed pay scales for veterans \u2014 a large percentage of the league\u2019s starters who had reached free agency made the max.<\/p>\n That changed in the current CBA, which elevated the WNBA\u2019s so-called \u201csupermax\u201d for qualifying players \u2014 those who re-signed with their own team or changed teams via sign-and-trade \u2014 to 16.5% of the cap. In the current proposal, max salaries stand to increase even more: The supermax would make up 20% of the cap going forward.<\/p>\n ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n By comparison to the NBA\u2019s maximum salaries (which run from 25% to 35% of the cap, based on years of service), that seems paltry. But it\u2019s important to remember that the NBA has a soft salary cap as compared to the WNBA\u2019s hard one, meaning most teams exceed it. WNBA teams can only go over the cap in hardship situations.<\/p>\n The NBA\u2019s luxury tax line is a more appropriate point of reference. On average, NBA teams typically spend a similar percentage of the tax amount as the WNBA does the hard salary cap. The WNBA\u2019s 20% max would be equivalent to about 24% of the NBA luxury tax line, similar to the max for players with six years or fewer experience. (That\u2019s still not close to the most experienced, highest-paid players.)<\/p>\n One other notable comparison between the leagues is the spread between maximum and minimum. The NBA\u2019s ratio is a whopping 42.5:1 for the highest-paid players and the lowest. With the WNBA\u2019s most recent proposal, the ratio of max salary to minimum salary will be around 5:1. That\u2019s certainly higher than it once was (prior to the 2020 CBA, the WNBA\u2019s highest salaries were less than three times the smallest) but nowhere close to the NBA.<\/p>\n It\u2019s worth remembering that the NBA\u2019s salary cap wasn\u2019t introduced until the league had played longer (nearly four decades, starting with the forerunner BAA) than the WNBA has now. It has continued to evolve over decades. The WNBA\u2019s finances continue to make progress, and the results of these CBA negotiations will mark the biggest step forward yet.<\/p>\n Comparison to other leagues<\/p>\n Earlier this winter, soccer\u2019s NWSL beat the WNBA to the first $1 million salaries for women in American pro team sports.\u00a0Sophia Wilson<\/a>\u00a0of the Portland Thorns became the first\u00a0when she exercised a player option for 2026 in December<\/a>. The NWSL approved a \u201chigh impact player\u201d rule this offseason to help teams exceed the $3.5 million cap to pay stars more after several of the league\u2019s top players left for higher salaries in Europe.\u00a0Trinity Rodman<\/a>\u00a0of the Washington Spirit was the first player to take advantage of that rule,\u00a0signing a deal worth more than $2 million annually<\/a>\u00a0that makes her the highest-paid women\u2019s soccer star globally, her agent Mike Senkowski told ESPN.<\/p>\n ADVERTISEMENT<\/p>\n WNBA salaries under the current proposal wouldn\u2019t get that high despite a larger salary cap than the NWSL because of the league\u2019s maximum salary, but player salaries crossing that threshold will be important symbolically nonetheless.<\/p>\n Athletes in men\u2019s team sports first began making in excess of $1 million a year in the late 1970s, after the advent of free agency but prior to the NBA salary cap. NBA stars\u00a0Moses Malone<\/a>\u00a0and Bill Walton reached the mark in 1979-80, at the same time as Nolan Ryan became the MLB\u2019s first million-dollar player.<\/p>\n The modern history of the NBA salary cap starts in 1984-85, when it was introduced for the first time and set at $3.6 million. That came amid rapid growth of the league spurred by stars Larry Bird, Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan as well as the arrival of cable television as a source of revenue. Since then, the largest relative single-season jump in the NBA\u2019s salary cap came in 1995-96, when a new CBA produced a 44% increase. The 2016 cap spike that allowed the\u00a0Golden State Warriors<\/a>\u00a0to add\u00a0Kevin Durant<\/a>\u00a0and form a super team translated to a smaller increase, 34.5%, though at $24.1 million, it was easily the biggest change in dollar terms.<\/p>\n The big difference between the NBA in the 1980s and the WNBA over the previous CBA is that the league\u2019s revenue sharing model, which defines the cap as a percentage of so-called \u201cbasketball-related income,\u201d allowed rapid growth in successive seasons. So from 1984-85 through 1990-91, the first year of the NBA on NBC, the salary cap collectively grew 230%, nearly identical to what the WNBA\u2019s current proposal would provide relative to 2025.<\/p>\n The WNBA\u2019s proposal would introduce a model similar to the NBA, where players get 50% of net revenue after subtracting expenses. The big difference is that fixed costs like travel, support personnel and arena rent make up a higher percentage of income in the WNBA than the NBA.<\/p>\n As a result, the WNBPA estimates that the WNBA\u2019s proposal would provide them less than 15% of gross revenue. The WNBPA has countered with a proposal calling for 30% of gross revenues before considering expenses. The WNBA projects that would result in\u00a0$700 million in operating losses over the course of the new CBA<\/a>. Players counter by noting that those losses would be made up for by proceeds from expansion fees with Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia set to enter the league by 2030.<\/p>\n The WNBA, like other pro leagues, considers expansion fees to be equity rather than revenue. As a result, that money is not part of the pool to be shared with players. However, it would potentially cover the projected losses without forcing the WNBA to utilize capital calls.<\/p>\n Like their major pro sports counterparts, WNBA owners have benefited from skyrocketing team valuations over the course of the current CBA. Those have escalated many multiples beyond the relative amount that player salary will increase. For most of the WNBA\u2019s history, $10 million was the official sale price for franchises, and far less cash actually changed hands. In May, the\u00a0New York Liberty<\/a>\u00a0sold minority shares at a $450 million valuation, representing approximately a 4,400% jump.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Kevin Peltonwww.espn.in After WNBA players opted out of the CBA in October 2024, virtually no veterans signed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553897,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,214838,214839,82,630],"class_list":["post-553896","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-how-wnba-salaries-evolved-with-each-cba","tag-road-to-1m-paydays","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553896","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=553896"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553896\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553896"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553896"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553896"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}