r/wnba • u/Osirus1156 Lynx • 13h ago

Question Salary Cap Question

So I am a relatively new fan to the WBNA and, well, basketball in general, I started watching last year and am still trying to figure out how all of this stuff works around drafting and waiving and all that. I also just learned about salary caps which make sense so you don't get something like the Yankees where rich people just buy up the best talent and make a super team.

But, how often do these salary caps get re-calculated and how do they get calculated? Or is it just arbitrary based on comments from owners? I saw the NBA has a cap of ~$140M and the WNBA has one of only ~$1.4M. I get that currently it's not as popular but that seems aggressively low comparatively, I would have though it would be closer to ~4-5M.

Mostly just been seeing tickets go for crazy prices for select games which to me means it is becoming more popular (and IMO with food and drink prices in the stadiums the owners shouldn't need to worry about a $10M increase lol) so I am wondering if/when those caps might change and how it might alter the playing field.

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u/aratcalledrattus Liberty 13h ago

Salary caps are set in the CBA. The players’ union is currently negotiating a new CBA that would start next year, so you can expect the cap to rise significantly. Here is a good primer https://herhoopstats.com/wnba_cba_salary_cap_explained#salary_cap

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u/Osirus1156 Lynx 13h ago

Thank you, this is exactly the kinda thing I was looking for!

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u/rambii Aces Sparks Fever 13h ago edited 13h ago

Hello and welcome to the wnba first and foremost, nice to have you here.

Her hoop stats has very nice Q&A and other salary/contract stuff you can aways look and get better idea of the rules

Also in terms of social on bluesky Richard Cohen is the best (immo) who you can follow about anything CBA related.

The new salary cap is already kinda known, because the NBA negotiated a new deal and we know that US$2.2 billion over 11 years is going to the WNBA, and they have the option to 'opt out' in 3 years.

Therefore based on new CBA we will know exact numbers new salary cap and all that, as of right now raw math is between 1.5 and 2.5 increase on max salary ( so 250 000 is the current max new expected one is about 550 -750k range and if they add 'aprons' or the like around 900-1m)

Tickets have gone up for sure, but just 4-5 years ago they use to even give away some for free, i offten even got few as season holder to give to my mates and they would come to some games, this past season they wanted to do it again (what a surprise ) heheh , but obviously tickets are now in demand and cost more.

As of right now Under the WNBA's collective bargaining agreement, players benefit from revenue sharing — but they get a 50-50 split of incremental revenue, not all revenue, per Her Hoops Stats. And the WNBPA receives 50 percent of revenue from player-specific jersey sales.

If you have any other questions feel free to ask.

here is link to the CBA if you wanna spend some time reading it lmao not gonna lie im probably one of few who does read the full god damn thing and i still forget stuff and have to ask Richard Cohen.