Nearly 20 months after the WNBPA opted out of the 2020 WNBA collective bargaining agreement (CBA), eight months after the CBA expired, and more than two months after the term sheet was signed, the completed longform agreement has finally been released.
Don’t have time to read all 409 pages of dense legalese? Understandable! Here’s a breakdown of the changes and what they mean for the league, starting with the most notable and working down the list to the minutiae.
Revenue sharing
Throughout negotiations, revenue sharing was the most publicly contested topic by far. Negotiations began with the league office’s proposals to increase the volume of revenue sharing while retaining the framework of sharing net rather than total revenue, while the players fought for a system tied directly to gross revenue.
When the dust settled, the players came away with their preferred system, with some caveats. Reports in March, when the WNBPA and WNBA agreed to terms, indicated that the agreement was for 20% of gross revenue between the salary cap and other various player benefits.
That is a far cry from where negotiations began for the union, which, as recently as late November 2025, had proposed 40% of gross revenue. However, it aligned with a bit of an equilibrium derived from Alexa Philippou’s reporting at ESPN around estimated league losses, given the percent shares the players were proposing.
For better or worse, the completed CBA tells a more complex story. Rather than a flat 20% of revenue across the board going toward the salary cap and other benefits, the calculation has been split in two. The salary cap plus benefits will instead be between 30.25% and 30.5% of league revenue plus between 12% and 13% of team revenue.
To be clear, this is not another case like the 2020 CBA, which was touted as having 50-50 revenue sharing, but under the hood, it was more like 35-65 after aggressive growth targets. The two sides have aligned on provisions that limit the league’s ability to exploit that wrinkle in the math.
The main provision is that all non-gate team revenue amounts have been defined up front and will grow by an average of 12.5% annually. Gate revenue essentially just ticket revenue minus taxes and fees. In the event that the actual non-gate team revenue grows by at least 25% from one year to the next, both sides would reconvene and, in “good faith”, determine a fair adjustment for future years.
“Good faith” is a fraught term, legally speaking, as it carries very little weight in compelling the other side to do just about anything. The very next line in the CBA acknowledges this, to an extent: “For clarity, a lack of agreement will not create any right to unilaterally implement any adjustments or modifications, to lockout, or to strike.” In other words, failing to find a middle ground does not constitute failing to meet in good faith.
This same topic arose when the WNBA’s portion of the overall NBA media rights deal was signed in 2024, kicking in for the 2026 season. The Athletic’s Mike Vorkunov reported that the networks agreed to revisit the deal’s terms in good faith after three years if league growth warranted updated pricing. A nice idea in theory, but without dangling an incentive, such as the league offering to sell more games, there is little the league could do to force the networks to shell out more money than they’re contractually obligated to.
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Another preset value, at least for Year 1, is the “salary cap benefits” amount, which serves as an estimate of total benefits for that season. The 2026 value is $31 million, which will be compared to 2026’s actual total benefits costs when making final adjustments to the 2027 salary cap.
Total benefits include major expenses such as merit bonuses, team-funded 401(k) contributions, insurance, salaries paid to developmental players, housing and veteran recognition payments. Total benefits, though, do not include the cost of the league’s newly codified charter flight program.
One other limiting factor to note about the salary cap is the confirmation by AP’s Doug Feinberg, reporting in March, that the cap can go up or down by a maximum of 13% from 2026 to 2027, and by a maximum of 10% for each season after that.
The risk of an adverse outcome for players is there, but it is minor. If revenue from 2026 would otherwise have raised the 2027 salary cap by, say, 15%, the remaining 2% does not carry over to the next season. Even though it doesn’t carry over, though, it is still reasonable to assume that excess revenue would not simply vanish from one season to the next, so impacts can be short-lived.
General interest
The CBA also established one-time veteran recognition payments to honor the contributions of players whose time in the league laid the foundation for the league’s current outlook. This recognition payment will count as a player benefit for revenue sharing. For those purposes, it will be divided up into 25% portions and spread across the 2027, 2028, 2029 and 2030 salary cap years.
There has been confusion about who is actually eligible, as the league’s March summary of the payments referred to “retirees” when listing the payment tiers, but the CBA itself confirms that both retired and active players are eligible for these payments. The payments are tiered based on years of service; more on that topic later.
Since that announcement, the league and union have also agreed to reward any retired player who has won an MVP as though they had 12 or more years of service, placing them in the highest payment tier outlined below.
- 5-7 years of service: $30,000
- 8-11 years of service: $50,000
- 12+ years of service or retired MVP: $100,000
Merit bonuses — bonuses for individual honors or team success — were elevated across the board. The bonus for winning league MVP is up to $60,000 for 2026, nearly quadruple the $15,450 bonus in the prior CBA. In fact, the bonuses for the 2026 sixth player of the year and most improved player recipients will each be $15,000, just below the previous MVP bonus.
The 2026 season’s total merit bonuses, including commissioner’s cup champion, runner-up and MVP bonuses, add up to $3 million and will grow in line with the salary cap for future seasons. Under the old CBA, the league was only required to increase merit bonuses when adding games to the playoffs; even then, only the playoff bonuses were required to rise.
Facility standards have been codified, though they won’t fully take effect until 2028. Practice facilities, no later than 2028, must include a locker room exclusively for the team with a “sufficient” number of lockers, bathrooms and showers. The team must also have exclusive and private access, during scheduled times, to:
- A regulation-sized WNBA court
- A separate weight room and cardio space
- A separate medical/treatment room
Teams are encouraged, though not required, to meet these standards in 2027 through “reasonable efforts.” However, two standards were either added or updated to go into effect as soon as this season.
This season, all teams must provide nursing parents a space with “comfortable, safe, and private accommodations” that is not a restroom, along with access to refrigeration for breast milk. Prior to this season, the CBA guaranteed this type of space only upon the player’s request; now it is mandatory for all teams. Beginning in 2027, teams will also be required to provide a family room in the arena to be used by players’ families during home games; this is a new requirement in the CBA.
The timing of free agency has also been updated, shifting its start from January 11 to January 30. As a result, the first phase of free agency has now been compacted. In 2025, teams had the first 10 days of free agency to send qualifying offers; now, teams have just five days.
Teams and players may begin negotiating five days later, on February 4, but negotiated contracts may not be signed until full-fledged free agency begins on February 15 in 2027 or February 13 in all other seasons.
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At one point a contested debate, player housing landed not far from the previous system. For now, at least. Through 2028, it will be business as usual: everyone is guaranteed at least a one-bedroom apartment, while players with children under 13 will be eligible for a two-bedroom unit.
For 2029 and 2030, players with a base salary above $500,000 will not be provided with housing, except for those who are traded or claimed off waivers during the season. Those players will be given a hotel room for up to 35 days in their new home market.
This won’t be relevant for a while, but it wouldn’t be surprising to see players take slightly below that $500,000 threshold beginning in 2029 to actually save money. The 2029 minimum base salary for players with 10-plus years of service is set to be just $337,500, which leaves a good bit of wiggle room between even the highest minimum and the threshold.
On the topic of player minimums, those have been determined in advance through the 2035 season — this extends to 2035 for the sake of any contract signed in 2032 — increasing by 4% annually and rounded to the nearest $100.
However, these numbers are not locked in. If the salary cap increases by the maximum allowed amount for any two consecutive seasons, the league and players will reconvene to discuss, in good faith, “potential modifications” to the preset amounts.
Once again, good faith carries very little legal weight, and the players would likely need to find something they are willing to concede to the league in order to sweeten the deal.
Moving from player minimums over to team minimums, there is now confirmation of what some already assumed: Portland and Washington need to spend — a lot. The team minimum salary is 85% of the salary cap, which means all teams must finish 2026 with total salaries of at least $5,950,000 or pay a shortfall.
Per the Her Hoop Stats salary cap database, the Fire and Mystics are the sole teams that have not already eclipsed that mark. Portland, in particular, has nearly $1 million to spend to clear the team minimum, making the Fire a tailor-made salary-dump destination at the trade deadline.
One rule that didn’t change from the prior CBA is that when a player is traded, their contract for the ongoing season is not split in two. Instead, the entire cap hit follows the player to their new team. So rather than ending the season and paying out a steep shortfall, Portland and Washington could take on bad or difficult-to-move contracts that are hampering a contender’s ability to find the final piece they are missing at the trade deadline.
In turn, the other team could kick them a token future second or third-round draft pick for their trouble, all while their final salary cap reflects more money than they’ve actually had to cut checks for. A win-win.
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In the weeds
In the fringes of the longform CBA, some minor or otherwise overlooked changes were made.
For years of service, which determine things like minimum and maximum salary, free agency status and extension rules, a player previously received for any year where they were signed to a standard contract for at least one day of the regular season.
This meant that players who were only signed to replacement contracts (hardships) or seven-day contracts did not earn a year of service. Now, anyone who is signed to a hardship deal for at least seven days over the course of the season will receive a year of service.
The league also amended the rule that stopped players from receiving a year of service if they withheld playing services for 21 or more days. The rule remains in effect overall, but players who are exempt from prioritization rules will no longer be penalized for days away from the team due to those exceptions.
Under the old CBA, it was deemed that the prioritization exception did not override the 21-day limit for “withholding services” for crediting years of service, which is why New York Liberty guard Marine Johannès entered this season with only two years of service despite having played in four seasons.
Elsewhere, the anti-circumvention rules saw some minor but notable changes. First, all maximum fines in the section are now tripled. First offense fines for less serious offenses can now reach $900,000, with second offenses up to $1.5 million. More serious offenses can now be hit with a fine of up to $3 million.
Beyond increasing the existing fines, the commissioner may now also impose a fine of up to $1 million on any team found to have committed the more serious tier of offenses. This additional avenue for fining teams for violating circumvention rules is independent of an arbitrator’s findings, whereas the preexisting fines may be imposed only if the arbitrator concludes a violation has occurred.
Lastly, in the world of niche interests, the league has updated the rules regarding electronic medical record (EMR) systems. Previously, the CBA outlined how the league was allowed to develop and implement an EMR system with a goal of aiding both internal and external academic research to “improve player health and broaden medical knowledge.”
Now, the league has committed to using the EMR and requiring teams to do so for the duration of the CBA. Per the CBA, the league will make an app available to all players by July 1, 2026, so that current and, upon request, retired players may access their own data stored in the EMR.
