WNBA Settlement- Great News for Fans & Women’s Basketball

The WNBA players and owners finally came to an agreement. This is absolutely great for the WNBA fans. With this deal, the fans can be assured that the 2026 season will have a full schedule, and since is is a 7 year agreement, there should be WNBA seasons thru 2032.

Winners

1- Fans are huge winners.

2- Players, especially the best players are huge winners. The max salary for a player goes to $1.4 million this year to $2.4 million at the end of the contract. 

3- The salary cap this year will be $7 million. 

4- Rookies will get a bump. This year’s first pick will get $500k. And after three years if a rookie has made the All-Star team at any point, they leave the rookie contract after 3 not 4 years.

5- The average salary of players this year will be $580k and by the end of the contract, it will bounce up to an average of over $1 million.

6- Rosters will expand to 12 teams vs only 11. In addition, each team has the option of adding two developmental players. 

7- Charter flights are now in the contract. 

8- Financial amounts for the champions and award winners bounce up. 

9- Depending on length of service, retirees get up to $100k as a reward for building the league. 

10- Players are guaranteed to get about 20% of league and team revenues. While that is much less than the NBA, it is a start. 

11- Teams will not be able to lock up a player after 7 years of league player. Right now they could pick a player to lock to their franchise for 2 years. 

Impact

1- The expansion teams are losers because of the short time to draft players from the existing franchises and then the draft. It will be a hurried process.

2- What should have been an exciting free agency period, it will be rushed and may impact both players and teams. 

3- Other leagues will suffer because the WNBA will be much more lucrative. Fewer players will feel a need to go over seas to play. The impact on the Unrivaled will be determined later. The players have a long off-season, so many may want to continue to play in the Unrivaled. There will be some players who want to save their bodies and not play. Unrivaled will have a financial lure because the players are also in effect owners.