{"id":292194,"date":"2025-10-10T14:52:10","date_gmt":"2025-10-10T14:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/292194\/"},"modified":"2025-10-10T14:52:10","modified_gmt":"2025-10-10T14:52:10","slug":"champions-see-raise-for-best-of-7-victory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/292194\/","title":{"rendered":"Champions See Raise for Best-of-7 Victory"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThere\u2019s something particularly climactic about this year\u2019s WNBA<\/a> Finals, coming weeks before the league\u2019s collective bargaining agreement is set to expire and with most players becoming free agents in anticipation of a new leaguewide salary structure. As owners and the players union negotiate the deal, the Las Vegas Aces and Phoenix Mercury are still battling for a title\u2014and close to $23,000 in prize money per athlete. <\/p>\n

\n\tVegas takes a 3-0 series lead into Friday night\u2019s Game 4.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe CBA, which has been in effect since 2020, initially called for W champions to earn $11,356 apiece. The league then expanded its postseason bonus pool to $500,000 total in 2022. The 2024 champion New York Liberty earned a $20,825 bonus per player.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe\u2019re just trying to chip away and find ways for the players and to lift them and to pay them more,\u201d commissioner Cathy Engelbert said when announcing the increased payouts in 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThis year the WNBA Finals lengthened to a best-of-seven contest for the first time. As a result, the league increased the prize pool again. Winners will get $22,908 each\u2014roughly $25,000 more as a team compared to 2024\u2014while the runners-up receive $8,521 each, up from $7,746. Players eliminated in the first two rounds also receive increased prize money.<\/p>\n

\n\tStill, as the business of women\u2019s basketball has grown, other payouts exceed the bonuses paid to WNBA champions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIndiana Fever players, for instance, gained up to $30,000 each by winning the league\u2019s midseason Commissioner\u2019s Cup final in July, as cash is often used to add stakes for a new event. The 2020 CBA initially set aside $750,000 annually for special competitions. \u201cYou get more [money] for this than you do if you\u2019re the [WNBA Finals] champion,\u201d Fever star Caitlin Clark\u00a0said<\/a>\u00a0during the postgame celebration. \u201cIt makes no sense.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tEarlier in the year, 3-on-3 league Unrivaled paid winners on Rose BC $50,000 each.<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother imperfect comparison point: In the NWSL, playoff champions each get a minimum of $5,000, as do the league\u2019s Shield winners as the top regular-season team. Those prizes both increase to a minimum of $10,000 beginning in 2027, according to the CBA that went into effect last year.\u00a0NBA champions make more than $800,000 each<\/a>, the highest figure in American team sports. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOnce our paycheck stops after regular season, and we go into playoff basketball, honestly, you\u2019re just playing for pride at that point,\u201d Lynx guard Courtney Williams said this summer.<\/p>\n

\n\tWinning a title also likely comes with increased marketing opportunities. In past offseasons, the league has signed its own brand ambassador deals for players who promote the W during the hiatus. Prize payouts are expected to increase alongside salaries in the WNBA\u2019s next CBA.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe want to significantly, and I mean significantly, increase their salary and benefits, while also supporting the long-term growth and viability of the WNBA,\u201d Engelbert said prior to Game 1 of the WNBA Finals. \u201cWe have made proposals to that end. We have been meeting regularly throughout the summer and playoffs, and we will continue to negotiate in good faith until we get a transformative deal done.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tGame 1 of the Aces-Mercury series averaged 1.9 million viewers on Oct. 3, the most for a Finals game since the league\u2019s 1997 inaugural season. Sunday\u2019s Game 2 drew 1.2 million average viewers. Even for those players still working on the court, these Finals are only the beginning of what promises to be a momentous stretch for the league off it.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe got to get to four [wins],\u201d Mercury guard Kahleah Copper said last week, \u201cand then we can go full throttle.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There\u2019s something particularly climactic about this year\u2019s WNBA Finals, coming weeks before the league\u2019s collective bargaining agreement is…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":292195,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[62,67,132,68,232,1707],"class_list":{"0":"post-292194","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-sports","9":"tag-united-states","10":"tag-unitedstates","11":"tag-us","12":"tag-wnba","13":"tag-womens-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115350440821319374","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292194","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=292194"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292194\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292194"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292194"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292194"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}