WNBA Ends 17 Month Labor Negotiations With Massive Pay Increases & $7M Salary Cap

After 17 months of negotiations, the WNBA has reached a new labor agreement. 

The WNBA has seen unprecedented growth the past couple of seasons. The players wanted several key reforms to the league and were willing to strike to get their demands. 

There were several changes to the WNBA’s salary rules. The minimum salary is expected to be $300,000 next offseason, a supermax contract will give players $1.4 million and the salary cap will be $7 million. All of these figures are massive increases. 

One of the biggest issues the players union had was with WNBA revenue-sharing rules. The WNBA had its revenue sharing percentage set at 9% in 2025. This was a decrease over the 2019 figure, which was 12%. In the NBA, players receive 50% of revenue shares. The WNBA figure after the negotiations is still far below that, but the new 20% mark is still a big increase over the WNBA’s previous percentage. Overall, the new deal has been well received by WNBA players.

“This deal is going to be transformational,” Breanna Stewart said. “It’s going to build and help create a system where everybody is getting exactly what they deserve and more, from on the court and off the court aspects. Just excited that we can tell our fans that we’re going to be back.”

Although the season was still a ways away, there were worries that the labor negotiations could interfere with the expansion draft. The Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo will join the league this offseason. The expansion draft is scheduled from April 1-6. As of now, the labor negotiations have not caused any schedule changes for the WNBA.

The WNBA regular season is scheduled to start on May 8. The first game of the season will be the Connecticut Sun taking on the New York Liberty.