WNBA No. 1 pick Azzi Fudd to make $2.2 million, up 500% from Caitlin Clark's rookie deal

By Weston Blasi

The WNBA's latest labor agreement paved the way for the league's wealthiest rookie class ever

Here's how much the 2026 WNBA draft class - including UConn star Azzi Fudd - will earn compared with past top draft picks like Caitlin Clark and Paige Bueckers.

Monday's 2026 WNBA draft was the first since the players collectively bargained for a huge pay raise - which means the No. 1 overall pick will make a staggering 534% more compared with last year's top pick.

In the draft, the position where a player is selected determines how much money she will earn on her rookie deal. This is because the WNBA has a rookie wage scale, which assigns dollar amounts to specific draft slots. The higher a player is drafted, the more lucrative her overall first contract is.

The No. 1 overall pick in this year's draft, UConn guard Azzi Fudd, will earn a $500,000 base salary in her first year, and will make $2.2 million over the four years of her rookie contract. The No. 2 and No. 3 picks - TCU's Olivia Miles and Spain's Awa Fam Thiam - will get $466,913 and $436,016 in their first seasons, respectively.

"I'm not really sure I have words to describe that feeling, what that meant," Fudd said after getting drafted. "I don't think it's fully sunk in. It's nothing I could have imagined. The feeling of sitting with my family, with Morgan (Valley), hearing your name called, go up there. Such a surreal feeling."

Miles was also moved. "Deep breath, that's why I got emotional," Miles said of finishing her journey. "It's finally here, finally heard my name. This is what this was for."

By comparison, the No. 1 pick in 2024, Caitlin Clark, made just $76,535 in her first season as part of a four-year, $338,056 deal at the time, according to contract-monitoring site Spotrac. And in 2025, top pick Paige Bueckers made $78,831 in base salary as part of a four-year, $348,198 deal at the time.

But veterans like them will now get raises, too.

Thanks to the landmark labor agreement reached in March, not only will this year's WNBA draft picks benefit, but players already in the league will also get huge raises for the upcoming 2026-2027 season as part of a much higher salary cap.

That means some of the highest-paid veteran players will earn $1.4 million this season, while the new league minimum salary will sit at $270,000 (up from $66,079). So this marks the first time that an WNBA player will make a seven-figure salary in league history.

Bueckers will get a salary boost to $500,000 (from $78,831) for the 2026-'27 season, according to Spotrac, and Clark will make $528,846, higher than the incoming rookies. These salary jumps will happen automatically for all WNBA veteran players. Plus, salaries for top players could be boosted even higher with an "Exceptional Performance on Initial Contract" (EPIC) trigger, like an MVP award or All-WNBA honors.

"The new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) significantly raises the salary cap from $1.5 million in 2025 to $7 million," Lisa Delpy Neirotti, the director of the sports-management program at George Washington University's business school, told MarketWatch. That's why veterans like Bueckers and Clark can "renegotiate for higher [salaries] in 2026."

Top ten 2026 WNBA Draft picks average annual value, and total contract value.

Before this collective bargaining agreement was reached, the WNBA and its players union had been locked in a labor dispute since last October centered around several topics, including player housing, travel and, most importantly, league revenue sharing.

Prior to the 2026 CBA, WNBA players received just 9.3% of total league revenue, according to reports from Bloomberg News and former Los Angeles Sparks player Chiney Ogwumike, whose sister Nneka Ogwumike serves as union president. While the new labor deals will have WNBA players now earning 20% of gross league revenue, according to the CBA, that's still far below what other leagues share with their players.

By comparison, the NBA splits its basketball-related revenue with players at a rate of between 49% and 51%, NFL players get 48% of all league revenue and NHL players get 50% of revenue.

See: The 5 highest-paid college basketball players this year: No. 1 is making $4.2 million from NIL

Read on: The $7 billion reason the Big Ten is dominating college sports

-Weston Blasi

This content was created by MarketWatch, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. MarketWatch is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

04-14-26 1030ET