The WNBA is about to have a new collective bargaining agreement. A’ja Wilson will be one of the first players to cash in.
The Las Vegas Aces star is expected to re-sign with the franchise on a supermax deal with a salary of $1.4 million, the new high mark of the fresh CBA, according to Callie Fin of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Under the previous CBA, the supermax salary was only $249,000, which is lower than the league’s new minimum salary.
Advertisement
The WNBA and its player union reached a verbal agreement on the new CBA early Wednesday morning, after months of angst about the fate of the 2026 season, weeks of sniping over proposals and counter-proposals and days of marathon bargaining sessions.
Yahoo Fantasy Bracket Mayhem: Make your picks for $50K in total prizes
The deal is not official yet, as a term sheet must be finalized this week, after which the players and WNBA Board of Governors will vote on its approval. After that, an entire offseason’s worth of activities — including the expansion draft, free agency and the collegiate draft — will be truncated into the the month of April.
A’ja Wilson won’t be the only WNBA star seeing her salary multiply under the new CBA. (AP Photo/Steve Marcus)
(ASSOCIATED PRESS)
Wilson is a natural choice for the new supermax, with a résumé that gives her a strong argument as the top player in the league. She has led the Aces to WNBA titles in three of the past four seasons, with an unprecedented four MVP awards, two Finals MVP awards and seven All-Star selections to her name.
Advertisement
Over the course of her prime, Fin notes Wilison has taken team-friendly deals to aid the Aces front office, such as her two-year extension in 2023 that paid her $200,000 per year. She was not among the 20 highest-paid players in the league last year, nor the highest paid player on her own team (Jewell Loyd, $249,000).
In total, Wilson has made $1.03 million in cash from contracts over the course of her eight-season WNBA career, per Spotrac. She is now set to make hundreds of thousands of dollars more than that in a single year.
Wilson is among the several WNBA stars slated to hit free agency this offseason (the players were well aware of the potential fruits of the new CBA), with Napheesa Collier, Breanna Stewart, Alyssa Thomas, Sabrina Ionescu, Jackie Young, Kelsey Plum, Nneka Ogwumike and Kahleah Copper among the players hitting the market.
