The New York Liberty were out last night at Barclays Center to catch the Nets vs. the NBA champs OKC Thunder. Fans took pictures of Betnijah Laney, who’ll be back this season after missing all of 2025, Jonquel Jones and new coach Chris DeMarco who sat courtside…
Even Miss Ellie made an appearance …
The
product on the court wasn’t worth celebrating. The Nets set records for inadequacy. The reason for all those smiles had happened the night before when the WNBA and the players association reached an agreement on a new seven-year contract, upping player salaries and amenities while giving the owners long-term security. No need to worry about any labor issues through 2032 when both sides have an option to re-open the deal. That should make valuations rise even higher.
In the meantime, things will now start to go into overdrive as the teams prepare for the coming season. The contract is expected to be ratified on March 31, the WNBA expansion draft for two new franchises in Toronto and Portland will take place between April 1 and 6. Teams will have to submit their lists of exempt players by April 1, with the actual draft looking like April 6. The day after that, April 7, it’s the opening of free agency. Then it’s the draft on April 13 – Libs currently have the 41st pick. Training camp opens April 19 and preseason games will be played April 25 at Barclays and May 3 at Mohican Sun. Then finally on May 8, it will be Opening Night of the season many thought might have to canceled. But 100+ hours of talk ended that element of social media doom-scrolling.
Everyone is still going through the fine print looking for what’s new and what’s not. Madeline Kenny of the Post laid out the key elements:
- A salary cap starting at $7 million in 2026 — up from $1.5 million in 2025 — and an average of 20 percent revenue share across the lifetime of the deal;
- A $1.4 million supermax contract, which equates to a 20 percent cap hit in Year 1.
- The average salary is projected to be around $600,000 with the minimum salaries around $300,000.
- Upgrades to housing benefits.
“Those numbers are a far cry from the previous CBA’s benchmarks. In 2025, the league’s minimum salary was $66,079 and the supermax was $249,244, Kenney noted. ”The major jump in pay follows the WNBA’s boom in popularity over the past few seasons.”
Details of other issues like retirement benefits, charter air, maternity and family planning benefits and league wide standards for amenities like player locker rooms, lounges, etc. are still undisclosed.
Then of course each team’s basketball operations staffs will be combing through the CBA paragraph by paragraph to see what can benefit their team. In the Liberty’s case, they have an advantage in that Clara Wu Tsai, Liberty governor, was one of only two owners involved in the talks, on the league side. The Liberty’s ownership group with the Tsais, the Kochs and Jack Ma are presumed to be the richest in the W with a network of nearly $150 billion and the franchise itself worth close to half billion dollars.
The players didn’t get nearly what they had hoped for: a higher percentage of league revenue. The lengthy of the contract could hurt as well. If indeed, women’s basketball continues its upward arc, the players might be stuck with numbers at the end of the deal that are below their worth … again.
However, overall, perfect is the enemy of the good. As our Brian Fleurantin wrote in his Women’s Basketball Round-up Thursday: “The road to this moment has been taxing. The WNBPA had to find its resolve and manage pressure from all sides. The WNBA had to step up and truly invest in the game and the players. A new CBA represents exciting new possibilities for all.
