The WNBA's latest proposal to the Women's National Basketball Players Association includes a maximum salary in 2026 featuring a guaranteed $1 million base, sources told ESPN on Monday, with projected revenue sharing pushing total earnings for max players to more than $1.2 million.
Under the proposal, sources told ESPN, the average player's salary in 2026 would be projected to exceed $500,000, and the minimum player salary would be projected to exceed $225,000. The salary cap would increase to $5 million in 2026 and, according to sources, be tied directly to revenue growth in each year of the deal.
It is unclear what the players think of this proposal, but an agreement does not appear imminent, as late Sunday night both sides agreed to an extension of the current CBA through Jan. 9, 2026. The union proposed the nearly six-week extension, and the league agreed to it after initially asking for a 21-day one.
The new numbers reflect incremental increases from the league's last proposal that was reported by The Associated Press and then confirmed by ESPN on Nov. 18: more than $1.1 million in total compensation (salary and a revenue share component) for players at the max, an average compensation of more than $460,000 and players at the minimum earning more than $220,000.
In 2025, the league's minimum salary was $66,079, the supermax was $249,244 and the salary cap was $1,507,100, increasing at a fixed rate of 3% each year under the agreement. The current deal also has a separate revenue sharing provision that grants direct payments to players if the league hits certain revenue targets, though that has yet to happen largely because of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The WNBPA and players, though, have been pushing for a system in which the salary cap, and thus player salaries, are more directly tied to the growth of the business -- such as in the NBA, where the salary cap is directly determined by basketball-related income (BRI).
Both sides came to the new extension -- a bit longer than their last one of 30 days agreed to at the end of October -- hoping that it provides a real runway to make meaningful progress toward a new deal, and ideally even get one done before Jan. 9.