WNBA Expansion Draft rules turn the offseason chaos factor up to 11

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Bullet point summary by AI

The WNBA welcomes the Toronto Tempo and Portland Fire, setting the stage for a high-stakes expansion draft on April 3.Expansion teams can select unrestricted free agents without core eligibility, granting them exclusive supermax offer rights.Each existing team must protect five players, shaping a complex battle for talent as expansion teams build their rosters.

With the new CBA officially ratified, the next few weeks in the WNBA world are going to be absolute chaos. The mayhem will begin with the expansion draft, as the league welcomes two new franchises this season — the Toronto Tempo and Portland Fire.

If you tuned into the Golden State Valkyries’ 2025 Expansion Draft, you might loosely remember the rules. This year is a bit different, and honestly, it can get confusing trying to put all the pieces together. Here’s what you need to know about the 2026 WNBA Expansion Draft.

When is the 2026 WNBA Expansion Draft?

The draft will take place on Friday, April 3 at 3:30 p.m. ET. You can tune into the draft on ESPN.

What is the draft’s format?

Since this year’s draft consists of two teams, they will need to decide who picks first. A coin flip will determine whether Toronto or Portland gets the first pick in the expansion draft. Since both teams will also be picking in the 2026 WNBA Draft — picks No. 6 and No. 7 — whichever team wins the coin toss will have the choice of either picking first in the expansion draft or getting the earlier pick in the WNBA Draft. The rest of the draft will be in a snake format.

The draft will be two rounds, consisting of 24 total picks — 12 total for each team, 6 each round. The expansion teams, combined, will only be able to choose two total players from each existing team, only one per round.

How will the available players be determined?

The 13 existing WNBA teams are required to submit to the league a list of players they have rights to as of the last day of the 2025 season. This includes players on the team’s active, suspended, draft list/reserved, core, or retired lists. The existing teams may designate five players as “protected players,” meaning they are off-limits to the expansion teams. All other players on the existing teams are essentially up for grabs in the expansion draft.

What do players statuses mean?

This is where things get a bit chaotic and confusing. There are a lot of unrestricted free agents in the WNBA this offseason — over 70. If Toronto or Portland selects a player who is not signed to a contract for the 2026 season already, they will receive whatever rights to that player that the existing team had — this is for unrestricted or restricted free agents.

Toronto and Portland will only be allowed to select one player each from the list of “Potential Unrestricted Free Agents.” The WNBA describes these players as, “Any player who has completed the playing services called for by her [previous] player contract and has five or more years of service as of the end of the 2025 season must be designated on the Roster List as a ‘Potential Unrestricted Free Agent.’”

In the 2024 WNBA Expansion Draft, Golden State was not able to select any players who had no core eligibility. This year, Toronto and Portland have that ability. So the existing teams now have to either protect those players or leave them unprotected. The most interesting part of this is that if Toronto or Portland selects an unrestricted free agent who cannot be designated as a Core Player, they then become the only team with the ability to offer that player a supermax contract. The supermax, under the new CBA, starts at 1.4 million dollars.

Now, this does not mean the selecting expansion team has total control over all negotiations with that player who has no core eligibility. They can technically still sign anywhere; the expansion team is just the only team with the option to offer them a supermax contract.

What does this mean for your favorite WNBA players?

When you think of your favorite WNBA star, there’s a good chance they are an unrestricted free agent this season. Breanna Stewart is a great example of an unrestricted free agent with no core eligibility.

So, with a lot of those players seemingly happy where they’re at, will their existing teams use one of their five “protected” spots on them? Especially with each expansion team only able to draft one unrestricted free agent. Sure, the expansion team would be able to offer them a supermax contract and although the money is enticing, I’m not sure a lot of these players would take it if it meant not returning to their existing teams.

Overall, it will be incredibly interesting to see which players the existing teams choose to protect and the routes the expansion teams choose to take when putting together their inaugural rosters.