NEW YORK — Paige Bueckers hasn’t been an official member of the WNBA for even 24 hours and she’s already causing a stir.
Shortly before she was selected by the Dallas Wings with the No. 1 overall pick Monday night, news broke that she would be signing a three-year contract with Unrivaled. The deal will pay her more in its first year than she stands to make in her four-year WNBA rookie scale contract. The news highlights the league’s meager pay—her salary in 2025 will be just over $78,000—which is at the center of the active collective bargaining between the players’ union and the league.
Monday, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert was asked about Bueckers’s new Unrivaled deal and where CBA negotiations stand.
“I’m really proud of what they’re doing,” Engelbert said of the upstart league. “Of course, we’ll have—by the time we get done—16 teams, over 190 players we need to take care of. So, I know it’s a lot easier to do 30 in one spot.”
As Engelbert said, Unrivaled’s model—six teams with six women each playing a 10-week season in Miami—is not comparable to the WNBA’s, which features a 44-game regular season spanning five months. However, the staggering difference in salary and amenities offered to players in the first season of the startup 3-on-3 league does give the players leverage at the bargaining table, sources familiar with negotiations told Front Office Sports.
Upon signing her rookie contract with the Wings, Bueckers will make $78,831 in her first year and $348,198 over four years. The highest-paid players in the WNBA in 2024 were Las Vegas Aces guard Jewell Loyd, Wings guard Arike Ogunbowale and Phoenix Mercury wing Kahleah Copper, who all made the league’s supermax of $241,984.
Unrivaled’s average salary is around $220,000, which is more than the WNBA’s 2024 regular max salary of $208,219. This season, the WNBA’s supermax is just under $250,000.
When the players opted out of the CBA in October, the union laid out some of their priorities: increased salaries, improved maternity benefits, and retirement planning for former and current players. They also emphasized a desire to restructure the “current system” and replace it with an equity-based model which could do away with the current salary cap model. (Unrivaled, founded by WNBA stars Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, gives all players equity in the league.)
Hours before the draft, Bloomberg reported that the league had yet to respond to a December proposal from the union.
Engelbert disputed the report in her pre-draft media address.
“Inaccurate that any proposal was offered in December,” Engelbert said. “Accurate that we continue to meet and work together, staff to staff. We recently got a proposal from the players association, very recently. So, we’ll work through that once we get through tonight.”
Last year, Mystics forward Aaliyah Edwards was the WNBPA’s only rookie player representative. Fever forward Aliyah Boston, Minnesota Lynx forward Diamond Miller and Atlanta Dream guard Haley Jones were second-year player reps. After being drafted, Bueckers said she would like to be involved in negotiations.
“I definitely want to be in those rooms, have those conversations, be a voice for the players and stand up for us,” Bueckers said. “Just knowing what that takes and knowing what that will be like if I do that, those are conversations I’m continuing to have.”
A new CBA must be negotiated before the 2026 season in order to avoid a lockout or strike. Engelbert stated plainly that the league would not participate in negotiations via the media when asked what the league considers a fair deal.
Engelbert did emphasize the league’s improved economic model, which includes a new media rights deal valued at $2.2 billion over 11 years. To Engelbert, a fair deal has to protect the sustainability of the WNBA for the next 10 years. She’s confident it will get done.
“These things take time,” Engelbert said. “They’re partial proposals … We want full, comprehensive proposals in order to determine what the future looks like. But, again, I’m very optimistic that we’ll get something done and it’ll be transformational.”
