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Though the details haven’t yet been confirmed by the league or by the WNBPA, the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) signed this week will benefit every player in the league — and that includes the incoming rookie class, who will be the first round of players to only know what this agreement is like.
Per reporting from USA Today, who spoke to a source familiar with negotiations, all players who are currently under contract in the league — including those who are still on rookie contracts — will be graduated from the rookie minimum they’ve been receiving to the new league minimum. That’s a big jump from $66,607 to more than $300,000.
But rookies who go above and beyond are getting other benefits, too. If a rookie is named to first or second-team All-WNBA teams at the end of the season, they’ll be eligible to sign the maximum contract in their fourth year of play. They would not be eligible to be cored. Players who are named MVP while on a rookie contract would be similarly eligible to receive the maximum contract the following season.
Other elements of the new CBA have not been officially confirmed
Despite the fact that it will take at least a few weeks before the WNBA and the WNBPA are able to ratify the new agreement, details about what it does and does not include are slowly being leaked to members of the media who covered the negotiations. In turn, that information is being shared online.
The new CBA will reportedly include a salary cap that will begin at $7 million in the first year of the deal, which is a huge jump from the 2025 salary cap of $1.5 million. Average revenue share for the players will also be around 20% for the lifetime of the deal — that’s a drop from the number the players originally pushed for, but, per information that was available publicly before the agreement was reached, the league had previously only focused on offering net revenue.
The new supermax will be $1.4 million, and average player salaries will be $600,000. The length of the deal has not yet been finalized, though it appears it will be six or seven years. Other details are still being finalized, though it appears the two parties have found a compromise on housing, which was consistently another key part of negotiations for the WNBA players.
