{"id":473738,"date":"2026-02-17T11:32:27","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T11:32:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/473738\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T11:32:27","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T11:32:27","slug":"as-wnba-popularity-soars-player-salaries-remain-a-big-hurdle-for-the-league-to-address","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/473738\/","title":{"rendered":"As WNBA popularity soars, player salaries remain a big hurdle for the league to address"},"content":{"rendered":"

Breanna Stewart will start her ninth WNBA season in a few days. The New York Liberty All-Star and WNBA champ has been around the league long enough to watch her peers fight for visibility. She\u2019s seen only a small uptick in player salaries over the years amid the WNBA\u2019s meteoric rise<\/a> in popularity.<\/p>\n

Stewart has been a part of negotiations for two collective bargaining agreements as a member of the WNBA\u2019s players union. A third round of negotiations is ongoing, perhaps the most important of Stewart\u2019s career. By the end, she hopes to see player salaries grow to unprecedented numbers.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been going up incrementally,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cBut hopefully with the new TV deal that\u2019s coming, it\u2019ll really kind of boost itself into a category of its own.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what WNBA players were hoping for when they opted out<\/a> of the current CBA two years before its expiration. The WNBA is bringing in more money than ever from sponsors and ticket sales, and will bring in much more from its 11-year media rights deal<\/a>, worth around $200 million per year starting in 2026.<\/p>\n

With its expanding reach, the WNBA\u2019s progress has come in a few areas: More teams are being added<\/a> to the league, meaning more roster spots. Full-time charter flights<\/a> were added last season after years of players lobbying for better travel.<\/p>\n

But as the league booms, players are looking for a larger share in that growth. WNBA players currently earn only a small fraction of the league\u2019s revenue share.<\/p>\n

Player salaries have been a longstanding point of contention between the NBA \u2014 which owns about 60% of the WNBA and leads CBA negotiations \u2014 and women\u2019s basketball players. It\u2019s one of the biggest financial hurdles the league still faces, and players have said they\u2019re willing to sit out games if negotiations don\u2019t lead to a pay structure they feel is fair.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe talent is there, the product is there,\u201d Dallas Wings guard Arike Ogunbowale said. \u201cNow we need to be compensated for it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The current WNBA CBA, which was signed before the 2020 season, boosted the maximum salaries for star players from $117,500 in 2019 to $215,000 in 2020.<\/p>\n

But that was long before the league\u2019s recent popularity burst, before star players like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese<\/a> brought in record numbers of fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe league has only soared since\u201d 2020, said Risa Isard, an assistant sports management professor at UConn. \u201cAnd so this is the chance for the players to kind of recoup all of the value that they\u2019ve produced in the last five years that they hadn\u2019t gotten to see themselves so directly.\u201d<\/p>\n

What WNBA players are paid compared to NBA players<\/p>\n

Paige Bueckers<\/a>, the No. 1 pick in last month\u2019s WNBA draft, signed a rookie deal that will be worth just over $78,000 in base salary, which is around what Clark received as the No. 1 pick a year ago. They\u2019ll make much more in marketing deals and performance bonuses.<\/p>\n

Both are considered generational talents. Both are regarded as franchise-altering players. Both will make significantly less in base salary than most players in other leagues who have been just as hyped for their potential to change the trajectory of their teams.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s true for established stars like Stewart and three-time MVP A\u2019ja Wilson<\/a>, too. Players of their caliber can make at most around $240,000.<\/p>\n

The minimum salary for NBA players is $1,157,153. Victor Wembanyama, the superstar San Antonio Spurs center drafted No. 1 in 2023, earned $12.2 million as part of his $55 million rookie contract.<\/p>\n

The NBA\u2019s numbers are much bigger in part because of the huge difference in profit margins of both leagues. The NBA generated around $11 billion in revenue last season. The WNBA does not publicly release its revenue numbers, though Bloomberg reported the league made around $200 million in 2023.<\/p>\n

WNBA player salaries are also significantly less than what the NBA paid its players when it last generated around $30 million \u2014 $200 million today, when adjusted for inflation \u2014 in the early 1970s, said David Berri, an economics professor at Southern Utah University. It\u2019s top players then were making around $300,000, which today would be roughly $2 million, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re paying the women today so very, very little relative to what they were paying the men 50 years ago,\u201d Berri added, \u201cand the explanation of that to me, (is) you\u2019re obviously just treating the women differently than the men.\u201d<\/p>\n

How much WNBA player salaries could increase<\/p>\n

How much of a salary increase players receive remains to be seen. Berri said a 50% share of $200 million revenue earnings would equal an average player salary of at least $1 million, with max salaries going anywhere from $3 million to $5 million.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s easier said than done, he added.<\/p>\n

\u201cIs the NBA going to acknowledge how little they were paying them?\u201d Berri said, \u201cand suddenly just come out with an agreement and say, \u2018Oh, we\u2019re going to pay you $5 million now?\u201d<\/p>\n

No WNBA player has ever earned close to $1 million in salary, but Stewart said reaching that number could set an important precedent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are players in this league that are valued at more than $1 million,\u201d Stewart said. \u201cThat\u2019s just the reality of what it is. But for everyone else, seeing that number and realizing that, OK \u2014 now by that point, the league will be probably 30 years into it \u2014 and look what we\u2019ve done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pros and cons of WNBA players sitting out games<\/p>\n

CBA negotiations have never led to WNBA players sitting out games, and many are hoping that it doesn\u2019t come to that point.<\/p>\n

Though the WNBA, which is only 29 years old, has experienced a financial boom, it is still very small in terms of revenue compared to the NBA, which has been around for 80 years. That means WNBA players\u2019 leverage is limited if they decide to sit out games, Berri said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause if you walk off the job and don\u2019t show up, the owners, the NBA owners are like, you\u2019re actually not costing me much money,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Berri pointed to the U.S. women\u2019s national soccer team\u2019s fight for equal pay<\/a> as a blueprint for potential success. Many of those players constantly brought attention to the gender pay gap in soccer through the media and their own online accounts. It ended in the U.S. House passing an equal pay bill in 2022, and Berri expects WNBA players could use similar methods.<\/p>\n

If players do decide to sit out games, Isard, the UConn professor, said it wouldn\u2019t be surprising given their history of standing up for causes they believe in.<\/p>\n

\u201cOften, they\u2019re really selfless in what those causes are,\u201d Isard said, \u201cand they\u2019re looking out for everyone and anyone else and the community, and what is happening in the Senate race, and what\u2019s happening in reproductive justice and what\u2019s happening in gun legislation \u2014 so many ways that they stand up for so many populations across this country.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd I guess when I hear them say, \u2018We would consider that,\u2019 What I hear them say is, \u2018Why wouldn\u2019t we stand up for ourselves? We stand up for everyone. So us, too.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP Basketball Writer Doug Feinberg and AP Sports Writer Stephen Hawkins contributed to this report.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

AP WNBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/wnba-basketball<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Breanna Stewart will start her ninth WNBA season in a few days. The New York Liberty All-Star and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":473739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[650,3691,2832,435,28,1760,33357,14832,219631,2822,793,2004,2007,2833,186964,99,795,32090,434,13016],"class_list":["post-473738","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-aja-wilson","tag-angel-reese","tag-arike-ogunbowale","tag-breanna-stewart","tag-business","tag-caitlin-clark","tag-compensation-and-benefits","tag-compensation-in-sports","tag-david-berri","tag-fl-state-wire","tag-general-news","tag-new-york-city-wire","tag-ny-state-wire","tag-paige-bueckers","tag-risa-isard","tag-sports","tag-u-s-news","tag-victor-wembanyama","tag-wnba","tag-womens-national-basketball-association"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473738","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473738"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473738\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/473739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473738"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473738"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473738"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}