This week, Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) players voted unanimously to ratify a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA), with over 90 per cent of the league’s athletes participating in the vote. The seven-year agreement will begin with the 2026 season and run through 2032, with an opt-out after the sixth year. It is, without a doubt, the most significant labour deal in the history of women’s professional sports.
A CBA is a legally-binding contract negotiated between a league and an organization. In this case, the contract is between the WNBA and the Women’s National Basketball Players Association (WNBPA), the league’s players’ union. It outlines everything from salaries, benefits, and working conditions to travel standards and how revenue is shared between players. Essentially, it is a rulebook for the employment relationship between a sport and its athletes. All WNBA players vote on whether to accept a CBA, making it one of the most democratic processes in professional sports. When players feel the terms do not reflect their value, they can opt out and force the league to renegotiate, which is exactly what the WNBPA did in October 2024, initiating 17 months of tedious negotiations.
The numbers in the new deal are unprecedented and unparalleled by the standards of women’s professional basketball. The salary cap will start at $7 million USD, a significant increase from $1.5 million USD in 2025, with the supermax starting at $1.4 million USD, compared to just $249,244 USD last year. The average salary will be around $600,000 USD, a staggering jump from $120,000 USD, and the minimum salary—previously $66,079 USD—will surpass $300,000 USD. To paint the picture further, a player who previously earned the league minimum was making less than some entry-level office jobs in major American cities.
Perhaps even more impactful than the raw salary numbers is how those salaries will now be calculated. For the first time in league history, the salary system will be directly tied to a share of league revenue. As the business grows, so will the players’ salaries. The new CBA establishes the first revenue-sharing model in professional women’s basketball history, with players receiving nearly 20 per cent of league revenue on average.
At its core, the deal addresses equality issues that had long undermined the league. The CBA guarantees private charter flights for all players in the league, a basic standard in men’s professional sports that WNBA players have long been denied, at a cost of over $300 million USD across the span of the agreement.
Working towards fixing these disparities is a conversation that extends beyond basketball. The gender pay gap in professional sports is one of its most visible and persistent issues. The U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team spent years fighting for equal pay, filing a landmark discrimination lawsuit in 2019. They eventually reached a settlement in 2022 that included $24 million USD in back pay and a commitment to equal pay going forward. Despite having won four World Cups at the time, the women’s team still experienced immense institutional resistance to fair compensation.
The WNBA’s new CBA is coming in a different climate, one shaped by increased viewership, sold-out arenas, and the cultural phenomenon of players like Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers drawing audiences that rival many men’s sports. This monumental step comes after more than a year of negotiations, with the deal avoiding what would have been the first work stoppage in league history. For decades, the argument against paying women athletes fairly was simple: The money is not there. The WNBA’s new CBA makes that argument much harder to uphold. It is the product of a players’ union that refused to accept unfair treatment at a moment when the league’s commercial growth backed them up. For women’s sports organizations around the world, it offers concrete proof that the gap can close, and a blueprint for how to do so.