The Women's National Basketball Association's new $7 million salary cap took effect Wednesday with sixteen days remaining until the May 16 season opener, a 367% jump from the 2025 ceiling of $1.5 million and the largest single-year increase in any American major-league cap [1][2][3].

Three free agents have already negotiated supermax deals at the new $1.4 million ceiling. The 20% revenue-share component, which routes a fixed slice of league commercial revenue to the player pool above and beyond the cap, is the structural component that makes the new system more than a one-time raise [3][4].

The reading inside the league's front offices is split between a pay-equity celebration and an expansion-economics question. The expansion clubs — Toronto, Portland, Cleveland, Detroit, Philadelphia coming online over the next three years — were modeled at the old cap. Five new clubs at the new cap is a different financial test. Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said Tuesday the league's revenue trajectory had been "fully accounted for" in the bargaining; the Players Association's Terri Carmichael Jackson called the structure "the durable answer."

The contrast with the men's professional basketball cap conversation, running in this edition's coverage of Game 5 in Houston, is sharp. The NBA debate this spring is whether $50 million cap holds for stars who do not play represent overpayment. The WNBA debate is whether $1.4 million for stars who carry full minutes through a 40-game season represents the floor of fair pay. Two leagues, two cap conversations, opposite directions.

Saudi Arabia's PIF announced the same week that LIV Golf's funding will end after 2026 and Yasir Al-Rumayyan would step down. The contrast frame the paper has been carrying — capital flowing into women's sports while sovereign-wealth-backed men's-sports experiments wind down — has its sharpest day-one artifact yet.

The free-agent moves Wednesday: A'ja Wilson re-signed with Las Vegas at the supermax. Sabrina Ionescu re-signed with New York at $1.38 million. Aliyah Boston signed with the Indiana Fever at the supermax. Caitlin Clark's deal, which was settled before the new cap took effect, will be renegotiated at the supermax in 2027 under a CBA-mandated reset clause.

The next sixteen days are the league's first operating test of whether the new economics survive contact with the schedule, the broadcast inventory, and the expansion-club ramp. Tipoff is May 16.

-- AMARA OKONKWO, Lagos