Michaela Onyenwere Made $205K Winning a Title With UCLA Before WNBA Payday

It has been a profitable month for Michaela Onyenwere. 

On Sunday, the five-year WNBA veteran agreed to a two-year deal with the Mystics reportedly worth $1.4 million. 

The contract came a week after Onyenwere helped lead UCLA, her alma mater, to its first national title in women’s basketball. UCLA announced in September that Onyenwere was joining the program as an assistant for the 2025–26 season; she was able to fit her coaching duties within the WNBA offseason. 

Front Office Sports recently obtained a copy of Onyenwere’s contract—which runs through June 30, 2026—via public records request.

The contract came with a base salary of $175,000, and she earned $30,000 more in bonuses through UCLA’s conference and national titles. The $205,000 total is more than the 26-year-old Onyenwere had previously earned in a WNBA season. Onyenwere has career earnings of roughly $421,857, according to Spotrac, and made $125,000 for the 2025 season with the Chicago Sky. 

But that is about to change. The league’s new CBA increases the salary cap from $1.5 million to $7 million, exploding salaries across the league. The minimum salary is now more than last year’s supermax; the minimum for players with Onyenwere’s tenure is $285,000. 

Onyenwere made just $67,208 in her first WNBA season in 2021, when she won Rookie of the Year. She’s set to earn $700,000 this year.

UCLA dominated college basketball this season, going 37–1 and blowing out Dawn Staley’s South Carolina team in the title game. Staley herself took over as Temple’s head coach just two years into her WNBA career and coached the Owls during the WNBA offseason.. 

It’s unclear if Onyenwere will continue to be a Bruins assistant next season, but she will have some familiar faces with her in Washington. Onyenwere will likely have two Bruins she coached as teammates in Lauren Betts (No. 4 overall) and Angela Dugalic (No. 9 overall) were two of the six Bruins taken in the WNBA draft’s first 18 picks on Monday. 

The new WNBA CBA could make it harder for players like Onyenwere to get a jump-start on their coaching careers. The WNBA season can now end on Nov. 21 as part of the new CBA, roughly a month later than usual and deeper into the women’s college basketball season.