Caitlin Clark Is Going From $85K to $528K This Season
Let that sink in for a second.
Caitlin Clark — the player who changed the conversation around women's basketball, sold out arenas, and drove WNBA viewership to places it had never been — was making eighty-five thousand dollars last year. That wasn't a rumor. That was her actual salary.
That's over now.
The WNBA and its players association agreed to a new collective bargaining agreement on March 18 and the financial picture looks completely different. The salary cap went from $1.5 million per team to $7 million — nearly five times higher. Clark's salary under the new deal jumps to $528,000. The supermax contract tops out at $1.4 million. Minimum contracts are now above $300,000. Average league salary will land around $600,000.
These numbers should have existed a long time ago. But they're here now.
Clark isn't the only one seeing the difference. Her Fever teammate Aliyah Boston goes from $94,000 to $574,000. Angel Reese — just traded from the Chicago Sky to the Atlanta Dream on Monday — moves from $75,000 to $350,000.
She's Also Back on the Court
Clark missed eight months after a groin injury on July 15 and made her return on March 11 playing for Team USA in FIBA Women's World Cup qualifying in Puerto Rico. She helped the US roll Senegal 110-46 in her first game back.
She said she expected to be nervous. She wasn't.
"I was just excited," she told reporters afterward. "I've been preparing for this for a really long time. There's nothing like getting to run around out there and having fun, especially with a group of people as talented as this."
The Fever open the 2026 season May 9 at home against Paige Bueckers and the Dallas Wings. Training camp starts April 19. First preseason game against the New York Liberty is April 25.
A healthy Caitlin Clark playing for real money in a league that finally decided to pay its players what they deserve. That's a different world than last year.
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