Deloitte projects that global elite women’s sports revenues will reach at least $3 billion by 2026, representing a projected 340% increase between 2022 and 2026. The New York Liberty franchise ranks among the most valued WNBA franchises. For 2026, the WNBA projects an average salary of $583,000 under the new collective bargaining agreement; approximately $130,000 was the estimated average compensation under the 2020 agreement. A gap may have existed under the old CBA, but the 2026 collective agreement significantly raised compensation and established a revenue-sharing mechanism.
The Essentials
- Global women’s sports generate $3 billion in revenues by 2026, up 340% since 2022, according to Deloitte.
- Ticket sales represent 30% of these revenues ($911 million); North America accounts for 54% of the global market.
- The New York Liberty franchise is valued at $450 million, while the average WNBA salary remains at $150,000, compared to approximately $7 million in the NBA.
- This gap stems from a specific mechanism: collective bargaining agreements were signed at a time when viewership was marginal and have not been renegotiated at the pace of franchise valuations.
- The next WNBA collective bargaining window, scheduled before the 2026 season, represents the first real test of this rebalancing.
A Sector That Changed Dimensions Without Contracts Following Suit
The WNBA was founded in 1996 as an institutional showcase for the NBA. For nearly twenty years, the economic model operated at a loss, subsidized by the men’s league. Collective bargaining agreements negotiated in this environment reflected this reality: low salary caps, modest broadcasting rights, mid-sized arenas half-filled. The logic was defensive. The goal was to keep the league alive, not to distribute gains that did not yet exist.
This model held until several phenomena converged. Women’s game viewership progressed steadily over a decade, driven by social media, growing media coverage, and the emergence of players with strong public personalities. Then the 2024 season marked a threshold. The arrival of Caitlin Clark in the WNBA generated record television audiences for the league, with games exceeding two million viewers on ESPN, a level comparable to certain first-season NBA games. Arenas filled up.
Ticket prices followed suit.
Deloitte projects $911 million in game-day revenues in elite women’s sports globally by 2026, which will represent 30% of worldwide sector revenues. North America accounts for 54% of the market. WNBA franchises are now trading at higher prices than a decade ago. The New York Liberty illustrates the revaluation of WNBA franchises.
Since the 2026 season, players have been subject to the new 2026 CBA structure.
The Mechanics of the Salary Gap
Understanding why salaries have not kept pace with valuations requires examining how athlete revenues are set in American team sports. The system rests on collective bargaining agreements negotiated between the league and the players’ union. These agreements define the salary cap, the share of revenues returned to players, and employment conditions several years in advance. Valuations do not automatically trigger a CBA revision, but certain compensation and cap mechanisms may be tied to revenue growth; a general overhaul requires negotiation.
The 2020 CBA was renegotiated ahead of schedule after the WNBPA exercised its exit option in October 2024, with a new agreement signed on May 22, 2026, and applicable as of the 2026 season. At that time, the league’s revenues had not yet taken off. The agreement provided for salary increases: the maximum base salary was $215,000 in 2020 and increased 3% annually; total cash compensation for top players could exceed $500,000. In 2026, the projected average WNBA salary is $583,000; it remains below the minimum of a standard NBA contract, but it no longer hovers around $150,000.
Differences between the two leagues’ economic models contribute to this gap. The NBA generates substantial broadcasting rights revenues, while the WNBA was still negotiating its first significant agreements with major broadcasters. The 2024-2025 shift changed this comparison: WNBA rights became subject to new multi-year broadcasting agreements for 2026-2036; the amount of their increase is not disclosed in the official announcement. Elite women’s sports revenues are projected to increase significantly, while the WNBA has strengthened its media distribution; this development does not allow for establishing complete financial data on the WNBA without public accounts.
Salaries increased substantially with the 2026 CBA; the debate concerns the level of revenue sharing.
There is a classic mechanism here that labor economics documents well: when a sector’s productivity rises quickly, gains tend to be captured first by asset owners, then redistributed to workers during renegotiation windows, provided the latter possess sufficient bargaining power. In professional sports, this power rests on unions’ ability to strike, delay a season’s opening, force negotiation. The WNBA players’ union began this negotiation as early as 2024.
European Leagues Operate Differently, With Measurable Effects
North America is not alone in experiencing this tension. In Europe, women’s soccer is undergoing a similar transformation, with different calendars and economic models. The English Women’s Super League, Frauen-Bundesliga, and France’s Division 1 Arkema have seen their audiences and broadcasting rights progress. But European contractual structures function club by club, without centralized salary caps, which creates a different dynamic: top players can negotiate individually, and major clubs have begun investing seriously.
Chelsea, Manchester City, and Arsenal now spend significant sums recruiting international players. FC Barcelona’s women’s team plays at Camp Nou before 90,000 spectators during Champions League matches. These examples do not yet represent the norm in European women’s soccer, but they signal a shift in expectations. When a club can fill a stadium of 90,000, the question of what the players who made it possible earn becomes difficult to sidestep.
The difference with the North American model lies in ownership structure. In Europe, women’s clubs are often entities linked to men’s clubs, meaning owner investments can flow to both structures. In the United States, WNBA franchises long belonged to NBA owners, but independent acquisitions have begun changing this dynamic. The Golden State Valkyries, founded in 2024 as a WNBA expansion, and the New York Liberty, acquired by Joe Tsai, owner of the Brooklyn Nets, illustrate a professionalization of governance that shifts power dynamics.
Does Technology Redistribute the Cards or Cement Them?
A less visible angle of this transformation concerns performance analysis tools. Athlete tracking technologies, training load measurement, and video analysis, initially developed for men’s sports by companies like Catapult, have been deployed in women’s professional leagues as franchises professionalized. These tools allow teams to optimize player management, reduce injuries, improve collective performance.
But they also produce an information asymmetry: franchises have precise data on each player’s productive value, while athletes have limited access to these metrics to defend their own compensation. This imbalance resembles other dynamics documented in the digital economy, where data capture by platforms strengthens some actors’ power over others—a tension AI amplifies in other labor sectors. In professional sports, unions are beginning to demand shared access to data generated by tracking systems, on the grounds that this data concerns the players’ own bodies and performances.
The question of who captures productivity gains when technology elevates a sector’s collective performance appears in many debates about the future of work. Sports provide a readable case study: tools have advanced, revenues have followed, and the renegotiation window will determine whether athletes benefit structurally or marginally.
The Real Stakes of the Next Collective Agreement
The WNBA collective agreement, signed in 2026, constitutes the first real test of the new women’s sports economy. The players’ union has formulated demands: minimum salary increases, league revenue share, improved travel conditions and training facilities. These demands are precise and quantified, contrasting with past negotiations where the league’s simple survival was sometimes owners’ main argument for limiting raises.
Team profitability has not been publicly established. The league invests in expansion, marketing, and infrastructure. Distributing too large a share of revenues before the economic model is stabilized risks, in their view, compromising long-term growth. The overall financial situation of the WNBA has not been publicly established, although some franchises have reached break-even or profitability.
This debate reproduces a classic tension between growth and redistribution. Players argue they contributed to creating the value now materialized in franchise valuations, and that waiting another decade to benefit from it would mean financing the sector’s takeoff without reaping the rewards. Owners respond that the risk was taken first. Both arguments have their logic.
What has concretely changed is the balance of power. Top players contribute to WNBA viewership. Athletes like Breanna Stewart, A’ja Wilson, or Sabrina Ionescu have their own social media audiences exceeding those of many franchises. This leverage did not exist at this scale in 2020.
$450 Million Against $150,000: What Comes Next
Franchise valuations and player compensation measure two different things. A franchise’s value reflects anticipated future revenue flows: broadcasting rights, ticket sales, sponsorships, league expansion. A player’s salary reflects what the current collective agreement authorizes paying. These two quantities can diverge during periods of rapid transition, as has been the case since 2022.
This gap is neither permanent nor inevitable. Men’s sports have experienced similar phases. The NBA of the 1970s and 1980s compensated its players at levels that seem derisory compared to current valuations. It was successive collective negotiations, driven by a structured union, that gradually aligned player compensation with revenue growth. The WNBA is at an analogous stage, at a moment when revenues have reached a credibility threshold.
Deloitte anticipates that global women’s sports could continue progressing as broadcasting rights consolidate, sponsors discover a young and loyal audience, and ticket sales gain momentum. North America, which already accounts for more than half the market, will continue to serve as a reference for salary negotiations in other leagues. What happens in the WNBA over the coming months signals what female soccer, basketball, or hockey players worldwide can expect from their own renegotiations.
The revaluation of WNBA franchises attests to an ongoing transformation. Collective agreements will need to catch up to a valuation that has not waited.
Sources
- Deloitte France – Professional women’s sports: a booming market
- WNBA Broadcasting Rights Agreement 2024 – Amazon Prime Video, ESPN, NBC Sports (official WNBA announcement, June 2024)
- WNBA Players Union (WNBPA) – demands for 2025-2026 collective agreement
- Catapult Sports – deployment data for analysis tools in professional women’s leagues