The\u00a0three-time, first-team All-American has done the nighttime talk show circuit<\/a>, made headlines around the world, and in a month Bueckers will make her WNBA debut when the\u00a0Wings open their season<\/a> against the Minnesota Lynx.<\/p>\n “It’s a great time to be in women’s sports,”\u00a0Bueckers told Good Morning America on\u00a0Wednesday.<\/a><\/p>\n Yet basketball’s newest star is projected to\u00a0earn\u00a0just $78,831 US for her rookie year \u2014 about $109,480 Cdn, or less than the real median household income in the States.<\/a>\u00a0The No. 1 draft pick for the NBA, by comparison, can expect to earn\u00a0$13.8\u00a0million US in his rookie year, according to sports salary reporting site Spotrac.<\/a><\/p>\n Still, Bueckers’s salary isn’t unexpected. The details are right there in the rookie salary scale system in the WNBA’s collective bargaining agreement.<\/a>\u00a0And it’s a slight uptick from last year, when first-round pick Caitlin Clark was drafted with a starting salary of $76,535 US for her rookie season<\/a>.<\/p>\n BREAKING: Paige Bueckers is signing a 3-year deal with Unrivaled (per @kendra__andrews<\/a>). Bueckers\u2019 Unrivaled deal, after one year, is expected to exceed her entire projected 4-year WNBA rookie salary. \u2014@WNBACentral_<\/a><\/p>\n But this is coupled with the news that Bueckers\u00a0is also\u00a0signing with the 3-on-3 league Unrivaled<\/a>, where she will reportedly earn more in just one year of playing<\/a> than she could in her entire four-year contract with the Wings. And now, some fans and industry observers are calling this a sobering reminder<\/a>\u00a0of just how little WNBA players are paid.<\/p>\n “The W should be embarrassed,” said\u00a0one fan on X.<\/a><\/p>\n “The economics of the WNBA just don’t add up…\u00a0something is seriously broken,” wrote another.<\/a><\/p>\n “Paige Bueckers’ Unrivaled contract puts any future WNBA\u00a0salary to shame,” wrote the Pro Football and Sports Network website.<\/a><\/p>\n Women’s basketball has experienced\u00a0a\u00a0dramatic rise in popularity<\/a> over the last few years, between the emergence of superstar\u00a0players like Clark, the expansion of the WNBA<\/a>, and a surge in March Madness viewership.<\/a><\/p>\n The arrival of Clark supercharged the WNBA last year, with league attendance nearly doubling over 2023. The Indiana Fever in January announced a new $78 million US training facility to open in 2027 that will give the team its own space apart from the NBA’s Pacers.<\/p>\n “There’s been growing fan momentum around women’s sports for a few years now, and\u00a0basketball has been at the center of it,” wrote the ratings company Nielsen in its 2024 sports wrapup.<\/a><\/p>\n Last year,\u00a0interest in the league increased\u00a0by 29 per cent\u00a0year-over-year according to\u00a0Nielsen Fan Insights<\/a>. Regular season viewership increased 201 per cent in 2024 over the previous season, and some 800 per cent compared to 2014. About 3.4 million people tuned into the WNBA All-Star game in July,\u00a0Nielsen reported.<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n And given all this buzz, it’s not surprising some people are so shocked by Bueckers’s WNBA salary, says Cheri Bradish, the director of the Future of Sport Lab and Chair of Marketing Management at Toronto Metropolitan University.<\/p>\n “The business of the league has seemingly grown by leaps and bounds with new partners and programming \u2014 there is the presumption this would be reflected in talent,” Bradish told CBC News.<\/p>\n “And now with rival leagues, society is aware that it is possible to better compensate these athletes. So the economics do not appear to add up\u00a0when looking at the business model of salaries.”<\/p>\n WATCH | Meet the GM of the WNBA’s newest team in Toronto: Meet Monica Wright Rogers, the GM of the WNBA’s newest team, the Toronto Tempo<\/p>\n The newly hired Tempo general manager talks goals for the 2026 WNBA season and how she plans to build a championship-winning team. <\/p>\n People have been influenced by reports\u00a0about increasing viewership numbers, says Michele Donnelly, an associate professor of sport management at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont.\u00a0<\/p>\n “This has made the landscape for high-performance and\u00a0professional women athletes seem more lucrative than it actually is,” she said.<\/p>\n Why the pay discrepancy?<\/p>\n Unrivaled, the\u00a03-on-3 women’s basketball league<\/a>,\u00a0founded by WNBA stars Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier, just completed its inaugural season.\u00a0Players had an average salary of more than $220,000 US \u2014 the highest average salary for players of any professional women’s sports league and close to the maximum base salary in the WNBA, according to The Associated Press.<\/p>\n The Sports Economist<\/a> website says that the league “offers a new paradigm for how women’s basketball can thrive financially,” has a high-profile primetime spot on TNT Sports, and generates revenue through its 3-on-3 games and with “fan-centric” engagement.<\/p>\n It also has some big backers, with millions of dollars in investments<\/a> from U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps and\u00a0Milwaukee Bucks\u00a0star Giannis Antetokounmpo, among others.<\/p>\n But for many people, says\u00a0Bradish, the shock over WNBA salaries comes from comparing them to the NBA, where starting salaries are in the\u00a0millions.<\/p>\n Many\u00a0players supplement\u00a0their incomes playing overseas during the off-season, an issue recently highlighted when WNBA player Brittney Griner was\u00a0detained<\/a>\u00a0in Russia\u00a0on drug-related charges that ended with a prisoner swap. She joined Unrivaled last year<\/a>.<\/p>\n “Being paid an appropriate salary to be a full-time professional athlete is something that is still needed in professional women’s sport,” said Donnelly.<\/p>\n Still, she cautioned, although some salaries in men’s professional sports are “astronomically high,” that’s not the norm for athletes in those leagues. And, the highest-earning male athletes typically earn far more from their sponsorships\u00a0and endorsements than they do from their salaries or winnings, she added.<\/p>\n WNBA\u00a0contract negotiations coming<\/p>\n The WNBA\u00a0is a young league, with its first season in 1997, and doesn’t have decades of contract\u00a0negotiations behind it like the\u00a0NBA\u00a0does. It\u00a0also has a\u00a0history of under-investment<\/a>,\u00a0and with less sway and worse outcomes in\u00a0media rights deals<\/a>.<\/p>\n On top of that, WNBA players get a\u00a0much\u00a0smaller<\/a>\u00a0share of the league’s overall revenue\u00a0than their NBA counterparts,\u00a0although the current collective bargaining agreement expires next season.\u00a0Talks between the league and players’ union are ongoing, and salaries are expected to grow.<\/p>\n WATCH | Women paid less at the World Cup: Why women earn less than men at the FIFA World Cup<\/p>\n Women soccer players at the FIFA World Cup will on average earn one fourth of what the men made in Qatar last year, according to numbers released by the organization. What\u2019s behind this pay gap?<\/p>\n Players have indicated there could be a lockout if their salary demands aren’t meet. Bradish says she’s hopeful that salaries will catch up, and better business modelling for the compensation of women’s athletes will prevail.<\/p>\n “No doubt these women, through advocacy and collective bargaining, will well-represent themselves at the compensation table,” she said.<\/p>\n But the salary discrepancies extend beyond basketball. Players in the Professional\u00a0Women’s Hockey League<\/a>, for instance, can earn\u00a0as little as $35,000 US\u00a0per year. And last month, a FIFA report on women’s soccer<\/a> found that the average salary for top-tier teams was $24,030 US globally,\u00a0less than a living wage in many places.<\/p>\n And despite 2024 seeing a surge\u00a0of viral female athletes, such as U.S. rugby\u00a0player Ilona Maher, and gymnast Simone Biles’s Olympic comeback,\u00a0not one woman made the top 100 list\u00a0of highest-paid athletes<\/a> worldwide last year.<\/p>\n Soccer’s Cristiano Ronaldo\u00a0topped that list, with a total income of $260 million US in 2024, according to Sportico.<\/a><\/p>\n
\u201cBueckers’ first-year salary for the 10-week Unrivaled season will exceed what\u2026 pic.twitter.com\/7gv8RWx8AE<\/a><\/p>\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1772222305_963_default.jpg\")
Bueckers is projected to earn just $78,831 US during her rookie year with Dallas. (Maddie Meyer\/Getty Images)The rise of the WNBA<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1757766307_994_default.jpg\")
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Brittney Griner practises on Jan.16, in Medley, Fla. Griner has played with Phoenix Mercury since being drafted in 2013. (Marta Lavandier\/The Associated Press)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/1772222307_228_default.jpg\")
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