WNBA Salaries: Silver promises increase, but dispute continues over the formula.

Salary Increase for WNBA Players in the New Collective Bargaining Agreement

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announced that WNBA players will receive a “significant increase” in their salaries in the new collective bargaining agreement. Silver emphasized the importance of measuring salary growth through “absolute figures”, rather than the proportion of revenue.

I think participation isn’t the right way to look at it because there’s a lot more revenue in the NBA. I think you should consider the absolute numbers in terms of what they’re earning. They’re going to get a big raise in this collective bargaining cycle and they deserve it.

Adam Silver

The WNBPA chose not to continue with the current collective bargaining agreement a year ago and has since been negotiating a new one, which expires in less than two weeks, on October 31. The WNBPA shared a snippet of Silver’s comments on an Instagram story, with the phrase “I think participation is not the right way to look at it” repeated in a loop, and the caption “Don’t they want to share?”, tagging Silver. One of the main obstacles in the negotiations, according to the players, has been the discrepancy in how salaries should be determined amid the league’s growth. The players are pushing for a system where the percentage of revenue allocated to salaries grows with the business, similar to the NBA, where the salary cap is determined by basketball-related income (BRI), with the players receiving approximately half of that figure, as established in their CBA.

On the other hand, the league’s proposals have presented a salary cap that increases at a fixed rate over time, as in the current agreement, where the cap increases by 3% annually.

Satou Sabally of the Phoenix Mercury commented during the WNBA Finals that a recent proposal from the league makes the players feel that “we are not part of the league’s growth.”

If we were to continue with this CBA, we would decrease, in percentage, our compensation.

Satou Sabally

The league’s salary cap was $1,507,100 in 2025, with a maximum of $249,244 and a minimum of $66,079. The WNBA has experienced record growth in the last two years, with an increase in attendance, viewership, merchandise sales, investment, and franchise valuations, in addition to a new media deal worth $2.2 billion on the way. When asked during the Finals about the points of disagreement in the CBA negotiations, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert highlighted the importance of “balancing” the increase in player salaries with the “long-term viability of the league.”

We are trying to determine where that right balance is. I think we all agree that we are trying to return as many dollars as we can to the players, but we also want to incentivize the owners’ investment. We want the owners to have a viable business. Obviously, we are considering expansion to 18 teams by the end of the decade. So it’s important that the incoming owners have the opportunity for a viable economic model for the future.

Cathy Engelbert

If the two sides do not reach an agreement before Halloween, they could agree to an extension that allows them to continue negotiating, as they did with the last CBA that was finally signed in January 2020. A new CBA must be completed before a two-team expansion draft for the Toronto Tempo and the Portland Fire takes place, and it must also precede a free agency period where most veteran league players are unrestricted free agents.