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Athlete salaries in major sports have risen meteorically over the decades. In the 1979-80 NBA season, the average player salary was $173,500. A change in free agency, made possible by a lawsuit filed by Oscar Robertson in 1976, rapidly changed the sport’s landscape, along with a new era of superstars like Magic Johnson and Larry Bird.
Similar salary trajectories have occurred in the NFL, MLB, and NHL, and now, we may be entering a new inflection point for the WNBA. The average WNBA salary in 2023 was $147,745. The new Unrivaled basketball league, which enjoyed its first season earlier this year, has an average player salary of more than $220,000.
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Last year, the WNBA secured a new media rights deal estimated to be worth more than $2.2 billion over 11 years.
With threats of a player strike looming, which seeks a new deal for higher salaries and a greater share of league revenue, former WNBA star Sue Bird chimed in on the new financial realities facing the league and its players in an interview with Esquire magazine as part of a larger conversation about her and partner Megan Rapinoe.
Megan Rapinoe (left) and Sue Bird (right) watch semifinal during the Paris 2024 Olympics.Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports
“A half-decade or so ago, Bird says she fielded the question about where she hoped women’s basketball would be in fifteen years. ‘And my answer,’ she recalls, ‘was something to the effect of, ‘I hope the older players come across real disgruntled that they didn’t make the same money that the current athletes are making.’ I was like, ‘I hope I’m fifty-five and mad that I never had a million-dollar contract in the WNBA,’ because that means what we’re doing worked.’ They got there ahead of schedule. As she quips: ‘I’m only forty-four and it’s already happening, and I’m not disgruntled about it, which is great.’”
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Bird and her partner, soccer legend Megan Rapinoe, are icons of their respective sports.
Considered one of the best players in WNBA history, Bird was the No. 1 overall pick in the 2002 draft; she joined the Seattle Storm as a two-time NCAA champion out of UConn. Bird would go on to win four WNBA titles and was a 13-time WNBA All-Star. She also won five Russian National League championships and five EuroLeague championships. She is the all-time WNBA leader in games (580), minutes played (18,080), and assists (3,234).
Rapinoe scored 63 goals in 203 appearances for the United States women’s soccer team. She and the women’s team won the gold medal in the 2012 London Olympics. With the United States Women’s World Cup teams, she and the Americans won the tournament in consecutive appearances in 2015 and 2019.
Per Spotrac, Bird earned $966,591 over her 19-year WNBA career. In 2025, the maximum WNBA salary is $249,244, and each team carries a salary cap of $1,507,100.
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