The Aces have a chance to complete the first four-game sweep in WNBA Finals history on Friday, but most people are focused on what's going on with the league off the court as the players and league work towards a new collective bargaining agreement.
Front Office Sports has some details about the latest negotiations and while it may sound like a very enticing offer by the WNBA, the players still find it severely lacking. The league has offered a new supermax salary that more than triples the supermax as well as the veteran minimum, but it isn't close to what the players are looking for.
Via FOS:
According to multiple sources with direct knowledge of negotiations, the WNBA’s latest proposal does not include a supermax salary at or exceeding $1 million in the first year of the deal. The league’s proposal, according to those sources, includes a supermax salary closer to $850,000 and a veteran minimum hovering around $300,000 in the first year of the proposal.
The league’s current supermax is $249,244, while the veteran minimum is $78,831. The salary cap in 2025 was $1,507,100 per team, and was scheduled to slightly increase in 2026 if the players had not opted out of the CBA.
Tripling your salary sounds pretty good, but there is just too much money coming into the WNBA right now for the players to agree to those numbers. The league is both benefitting from and fighting against the Caitlin Clark effect here. As noted by FOS the league's television revenue will more than triple next season to $200 million, while the Connecticut Sun are about to be sold for hundreds of millions of dollars.
Combine that with the amount that players make in other leagues, including just below the current WNBA max to play in Unrivaled, and you can understand why the players both want and deserve so much more.
It remains to be seen how long it will take for the players and league to reach an agreement. Right now, things are a little tense between the two sides.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Why the WNBA’s Proposal to Triple Salaries Still Isn’t Enough.
