Caitlin Clark Grace Smith/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Caitlin Clark’s Salary Set for Massive Leap Under New WNBA CBA

Originally posted on Women's Fastbreak on SI
By Grant Young | Last updated Mar 20, 2026 12:09 PM ET

In the days of the WNBA's old Collective Bargaining Agreement, Indiana Fever star guard Caitlin Clark was the perfect example of the meager salaries that women's basketball players were receiving.

Clark's WNBA salary was $78,066 during the 2025 season. While she's surely in a great financial spot because of her making millions of dollars in endorsement deals, Clark is one of the biggest stars in all of basketball, both men's and women's. The fact that she was making merely $78,066 when a bench player in the NBA is making more than ten times that amount was concerning, to say the least.

But now there's a new CBA that was ratified earlier this week and that includes salary cap that starts at $7 million (which is an increase from $1.5 million), an average revenue share is nearly 20% across the entire CBA, an individual player's supermax contract that starts at $1.4 million, and average WNBA player's salary being in the range of $600,000, with the minimum above $300,000.

Caitlin Clark’s Reported Salary Surge Sparks Attention After CBA Change

It had been unclear how rookie contracts would be impacted by this new CBA, given that these players had technically already agreed to their previous deals.

But the existing rookie contracts (which is what Clark, Paige Bueckers, Angel Reese, and many other popular WNBA players are currently on) were also amended as part of the new CBA. And ESPN's Alexa Philippou conveyed this in a March 20 article.

"2024 Rookie of the Year Caitlin Clark -- who made $78,066 in 2025 -- is poised to see her salary jump to $530,000 in 2026, a source said. She could earn the projected max of $1.3 million in 2027 as a previous All-WNBA player. She could then sign for a $1.7 million supermax in 2028," Philippou wrote in the article.

Caitlin Clark could see her WNBA salary jump to $530,000 from $78,000-plus in 2025 thanks to a new pending WNBA CBA provision that would fast-track players on rookie contracts to maximum and supermax salaries, per @alexaphilippou.

Clark could then sign a supermax deal worth $1.7… pic.twitter.com/ZrcTxMAU0y
— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) March 20, 2026

Clark is still very much underpaid relative to the amount she generates for the WNBA and women's basketball. But $530,000 is still a whole lot better than the $85,873 she was set to make in 2026 without a new CBA.

This article first appeared on Women's Fastbreak on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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