NEW YORK — The WNBA and the Women’s National Basketball Players Association agreed Monday to a moratorium that freezes WNBA free agency after their collective bargaining agreement expired late last week. The pause is meant to keep teams from making player moves under 2025 rules while negotiators remain stuck on revenue sharing and a new salary-cap model, Jan. 13, 2026.
WNBA free agency on hold: what the moratorium freezes
The moratorium blocks the first stages of WNBA free agency: Teams cannot extend qualifying offers, issue “core” designations — the league’s version of a franchise tag — or negotiate with and sign free agents, according to a Reuters report. The prior agreement expired at midnight ET Friday, Jan. 9, pushing the sides into a “status quo” labor period while talks continue.
href=”https://www.espn.com/wnba/story/_/id/47592945/sources-wnba-wnbpa-agree-moratorium-league-business” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener noreferrer”>Sources told ESPN that teams had been preparing to deliver qualifying offers and core tags under the expired agreement, even as many players and agents waited for a new salary system widely expected to raise caps and contract values across the board.
The league’s request for a freeze also closes what Sports Business Journal described as a loophole window that could have produced low qualifying offers tied to last season’s economics — offers many players were expected to avoid while betting on a richer new deal.
Revenue-sharing numbers driving the standoff
Both sides say salaries must rise, but they remain far apart on how the money should flow. Under the league’s most recent offer, base salaries would jump, including a maximum base salary of $1 million in 2026 that could reach $1.3 million through revenue-sharing provisions. The union’s counterproposal would give players about 30% of gross revenue — before expenses — and set a $10.5 million team salary cap, The Associated Press reported.
The gross-vs.-net divide matters because it rewrites every lever that shapes WNBA free agency, from the salary cap and minimum salary to the value of qualifying offers and core designations. League officials have argued that expenses tied to charter travel, upgraded facilities and medical services must be accounted for before splitting profits; players have pushed for transparency and a stake tied directly to topline growth.
Expansion pressure adds to the calendar crunch
The current impasse has been building since the union opted out of the prior deal in October 2024, a move that triggered renegotiation during a period of rapid growth. “This is a defining moment not just for the WNBA, but for all of us who believe in progress,” WNBPA President Nneka Ogwumike said then, according to an AP story at the time.
The agreement players left behind was once a high-water mark. In a WNBA release announcing the 2020 deal, the league and union said the pact boosted compensation, improved benefits and built in a revenue-sharing framework tied to league growth — a system now at the center of this negotiation.
At the same time, expansion has raised the stakes and tightened the offseason. The league’s plan calls for the Portland Fire and Toronto Tempo to begin play in 2026, with additional franchises in Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia slated later in the decade, per a 2025 league expansion release. The longer WNBA free agency stays frozen, the less time the league has to fit an expansion draft and the college draft into a shortened window.
Negotiations continue, but neither side has announced when the moratorium will be lifted. Until a deal is reached and ratified, WNBA free agency remains frozen — an unusual stoppage for a league that has not lost games to a labor dispute in its three-decade history.
