WNBA Salaries: Silver promises increase, but the debate is about the percentage.

Salary Increase for WNBA Players: An In-Depth Analysis

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver announced that WNBA players will receive a “significant salary increase” in the new collective bargaining agreement. Silver emphasized the importance of evaluating this growth in terms of “absolute figures,” rather than focusing on the percentage of revenue.

I think the percentage is not the right way to look at it because there is much more revenue in the NBA. I think the absolute figures should be considered in terms of what they are earning. They are going to get a big raise in this collective bargaining cycle and they deserve it.

Adam Silver

The WNBPA opted not to renew the current collective bargaining agreement a year ago and has been negotiating a new one since then. The current agreement is scheduled to expire in less than two weeks, on October 31.

The WNBPA shared in an Instagram story a fragment of Silver’s comments, with the phrase “I think the percentage is not the right way to look at it” repeated in a loop, and the caption “Don’t they want to share?”.

A crucial point in the negotiations, according to the players, has been the divergence in how salaries are determined amid the league’s notable growth. The players are pushing for a system where the percentage of revenue allocated to salaries increases 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 CBA, where the cap increases by 3% annually.

Satou Sabally of the Phoenix Mercury stated 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 terms of 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 between the players and the owners in the CBA negotiations, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert highlighted the importance of “balancing” the players’ salary increase with the “long-term viability of the league”.

That’s what we’re trying to determine, where the right balance is. I think we all agree that we are trying to return every possible dollar 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 owners who come in 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.