WNBA CBA negotiations hit milestone — with a catch
Collective bargaining agreement (CBA) negotiations between the WNBA and the WNBPA have reached a significant milestone. ESPN’s Alexa Philippou reported Monday that the league’s latest proposal at that time included a salary cap tied to league revenue beginning in 2027, with 2026’s cap set at $5 million. A source with knowledge of the situation confirmed this report to The IX Basketball’s Stephanie Kaloi on Monday.
In addition to confirming reports of a salary cap tied to league revenue starting with the 2027 season, another source familiar with the negotiations told The IX Basketball that the proposal’s revenue-sharing payments would continue into 2027 and beyond. This would be in parallel with the salary cap’s calculation — also based in part on league revenue — not merely serving as a stopgap for one season.
This is a major development, as anything short of a salary cap directly tied to league revenue has been positioned by the players as a non-starter in negotiations dating back to well before the deal expired. For a bevvy of reasons, the league turning this corner is a reason for some optimism, given that prior back-and-forth proposals were operating on fundamentally different systems.
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Crunching the numbers
Now the devil is in the details. The reported numbers are limited at this time — not to mention frequently changing — and most, if not all, of the underlying mechanisms or formulas remain private. There are a handful of places one can connect the dots between reported dollar amounts to make the math work out, but they are few and far between.
One such area is squaring the $5 million salary cap in 2026 with league revenue projections that place average player compensation in excess of $500,000. Simple math shows that $5 million divided among 12 players is below $500,000, meaning some portion of that money is accounted for in the aforementioned revenue sharing.
That figure, however, makes sense if one assumes shared revenue would be disbursed to players based on their base salary. That is just one possible explanation, but the most likely one.
It’s easy to rule out a flat payment to every player in the league — the other most likely route the union could choose, at least under the current CBA’s rules. The total compensation for minimum-salary players has been reported as $225,000, while supermax players are projected to receive around $200,000 in revenue sharing, given the reported base salary of up to $1 million and total compensation projections of $1.2 million when combined with revenue share.
As a result, the supermax figures of $1 million and $1.2 million for base and estimated total compensation, respectively, suggest that an additional 20% or more of the initial salary cap is paid out in that projection, bringing the estimated maximum compensation per team from $5 million to north of $6 million.
From there, assuming 12-player rosters, the numbers are perfectly in line with the estimate of more than $500,000. If this is how the $500,00 figure is being derived, one could also back into a base salary for a minimum-salary player, yielding $187,500.
There are a lot of ifs and assumptions in that math, and so many of these numbers are constantly in flux, but using this information from one particular proposal at least gives us a way to illustrate how it may look in practice.
Also note that none of this is meant to imply that the 20% additional compensation is a negotiated term; it is simply the output of shared revenue projections ($1 million) inferred above, relative to the reported salary cap ($5 million).
The second extension
The WNBPA, which had not responded to The IX Basketball’s requests for comment on this proposal as of publication, may not see this with an optimistic lens. The union’s request for a 40-day extension on Sunday evening after the league proposed a 21-day extension suggests the union may see a longer path to reaching an agreement that they would accept.
Had there been no second extension, a period of status quo would have begun. A period of status quo preserves most working conditions, but it allows the no-strike and no-lockout clauses in the CBA to lapse, opening the door to work stoppages initiated by either side.
Still, that does not mean there is no risk of a stoppage before the new Jan. 9 expiration date. Front Office Sports reports that this extension contains the same provision as the original, allowing either side to opt out of the deadline with 48 hours’ notice.
The 40-day extension puts the league on a similar pace to 2020, when the league and union announced their tentative agreement on Jan. 14. However, that offseason didn’t also need to squeeze in a two-team expansion draft into the abridged free agency, something that affects both teams and how they plan. They also did not have to contend with players who may be uprooted across the country, or the continent, if selected by Portland or Toronto.
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The catch
As mentioned previously, the specifics of the revenue-sharing formulas remain unknown. Still, with an offer in hand that sets the salary cap based on revenue, the union will turn its attention to securing gains in exactly how much of that revenue will flow down to the players.
On that topic, the proverbial other shoe dropped on Wednesday when The Athletic reported that the current structure has players estimated to earn below 15% of league revenue based on 2026 revenue projections. That is a percentage that The Athletic also reports would decline over the life of the agreement based on the league’s own revenue projections.
That is, of course, based on league projections, projections that could be outperformed. But avoiding the possibility of losing ground on revenue share over time in a second consecutive agreement is a key reason the union prefers a truly direct relationship between revenue and the salary cap.
There is also Tuesday’s news, first reported by Annie Costabile of Front Office Sports, that recent league proposals have removed team-provided housing. It is unclear whether this element predates the first offer to include a salary cap tied to revenue growth, as Costabile notes that team housing was removed in multiple proposals, not just the most recent.
Under the current CBA, players are guaranteed either team-provided housing or a monthly housing stipend determined by the cost of living in each team’s market.
The thinking for the change, broadly, does make sense. Salaries are rising rapidly, so it follows that players on full-season contracts can find and afford housing much more comfortably than before.
However — especially when paired with reports that training camp could be moved up to mid-March in recent league proposals — removing team housing could be especially detrimental to hardship players. Hardship players are often brought in on very short notice and, in most cases, make less than the league minimum per day.
Barring other changes to curb injuries, such as extra rest days, expanded rosters or codified minimum standards for practice facilities, the heightened need for hardship players isn’t going anywhere. The union would be smart to negotiate carve-outs for in-season transactions or for players below certain salary thresholds, to protect players with the most uncertainty with minimal impact on the teams’ bottom line.
Beyond these items, evergreen debates around roster size, season length, draft eligibility and more remain on the table, though the monetary elements are the primary focus. The potential for a mid-March start to training camp, as reported by Costabile, opens the door for the WNBA season to interfere with college, domestic and international leagues.
The interplay between the proposed schedule change and policies such as prioritization and draft eligibility leaves many questions unanswered. However, the amount of information reported has increased significantly in recent days, with little sign of slowing.
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