The WNBA’s pay revolution is really a structural one after years of frustration
There’s still something about making a million dollars. It remains a milestone, even as time and inflation reduce its financial might. You cannot retire your parents on a $1 million salary.
You won’t even qualify as super-rich in some parts of the country. Nevertheless, the money is a significant indicator of worth. It doesn’t define your value, but it does make your work seem oh so important.
In sports history, that threshold has often marked a kind of arrival. When Nolan Ryan crossed it in 1979, his salary symbolized that a fledgling free agency era in Major League Baseball was about to crack the sport open. When Moses Malone and Bill Walton reached $1 million per season around the same time, it signaled the beginning of the NBA as a superstar-driven modern entertainment force.
The number is about what the math represents: the moment when a sports labor force graduates from being grateful for its existence to being shrewd about its business potential. After 30 years, the WNBA is poised to have its own watershed moment. The league and its players have reached a new collective bargaining agreement that needs only a few procedural touches to become official.
Months of long and difficult negotiations resulted in a historic pact. The deal has many layers beyond the top-end salaries, but most notable is that veteran superstars will be able to sign contracts that start at $1. 4 million.
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