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Alexa PhilippouApr 7, 2026, 10:44 PM ET<\/p>\n
Close<\/a>Covers women’s college basketball and the WNBA Multiple Authors<\/p>\n Ten of 15 WNBA teams have extended core qualifying offers to players since free agency started Monday.<\/p>\n Players who have been “cored” — akin to being given the NFL’s franchise tag — include Sabrina Ionescu<\/a>, by the New York Liberty<\/a>; Napheesa Collier<\/a> (Minnesota Lynx<\/a>); Kelsey Mitchell<\/a> (Indiana Fever<\/a>); Kelsey Plum<\/a>, (Los Angeles Sparks<\/a>); and Arike Ogunbowale<\/a> (Dallas Wings<\/a>).<\/p>\n The core designation gives a team exclusive negotiating rights to a player and comes with a baseline contract of a fully guaranteed one-year deal worth the supermax ($1.4 million in 2026), though the player can negotiate different terms.<\/p>\n Editor’s Picks<\/p>\n 2 Related<\/p>\n The core designation can also be a way for a team to prevent a player from walking in free agency without getting anything in return as it ultimately executes a sign-and-trade with the star.<\/p>\n Other players who were cored by teams this week include Allisha Gray<\/a> (Atlanta Dream<\/a>), Ariel Atkins<\/a> (Chicago Sky<\/a>) and Ezi Magbegor<\/a> (Seattle Storm<\/a>).<\/p>\n The unrestricted free agents the Portland Fire<\/a> and Toronto Tempo<\/a> selected in last week’s expansion draft were also given core qualifying offers: Bridget Carleton<\/a>, whom Portland chose from Minnesota; and Marina Mabrey<\/a>, whom Toronto chose from the Connecticut Sun<\/a>.<\/p>\n Teams were also able to send out reserved and restricted qualifying offers to players during this designation period, which began Monday.<\/p>\n Negotiations will run Wednesday through Friday, while signings can start Saturday. Training camp is scheduled to begin April 19 and the first preseason games are set for April 25.<\/p>\n Free agency and other offseason activity were delayed this year as the league and players union negotiated a new CBA, which was agreed upon and ratified by both sides in late March. The long-form contract is still being executed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alexa PhilippouApr 7, 2026, 10:44 PM ET CloseCovers women’s college basketball and the WNBA Previously covered UConn and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":571143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-571142","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571142","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=571142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/571142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/571143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=571142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=571142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=571142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nPreviously covered UConn and the WNBA Connecticut Sun for the Hartford Courant
\nStanford graduate and Baltimore native with further experience at the Dallas Morning News, Seattle Times and Cincinnati Enquirer<\/p>\n