Azzi Fudd’s Projected WNBA Salary Shows Major Shift From Paige Bueckers
It's no secret that ensuring that players were paid their worth was a core aspect of the WNBA's new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), which was finally ratified earlier this week.
And when it came to players not getting paid their worth compared to their immense value, the past two No. 1 picks of their respective WNBA Drafts were the prime examples.
These were Caitlin Clark (in 2024) and Paige Bueckers (in 2025), who are perhaps the two biggest stars in the sport, yet were paid mediocre WNBA base salaries. Bueckers had a $78,831 base salary for her rookie 2025 campaign, while Clark had a $76,535 salary as a rookie in 2024 and then a $78,066 for her second season of professional basketball.
No. 1 Pick's New WNBA Salary Shows Major Change From What Paige Bueckers Got
Many believe the No. 1 pick of the 2026 WNBA Draft will be Azzi Fudd, Bueckers' teammate at UConn. And Fudd is set to cash in because of her timing of entering the league, which was shown by a March 24 article from ESPN.
"According to the document, the average Year 1 salary for 2026 first-round picks will come in at $386,000, up from about $75,000 in 2025, while the rookie-scale salary for the No. 1 pick will equal more than $2.2 million over four years, the document said," the article wrote, with the "document" being the actual CBA.
Annie Costabile of Front Office Sports provided more context to this in a March 24 article by breaking down specifically how much each player would make in their first four seasons, depending on where they're drafted.
The No. 1 pick would have a $500,000 base as a rookie, then that would jump to $520,000 in their second season, then $572,000 in their third season, then all the way up to $646,360 in their fourth and final season of that initial rookie contract. This amounts to $2,238,360, which provides a specific amount for what that top pick would make as a base (while other awards and accolades would provide bonuses on top of that).
For context, the No. 2 pick in the draft would earn a total of $2,123,240 with this new CBA, which is still a vast jump from what Bueckers or Clark would have been earning without this.
Full wnba rookie scale contract amount
— Brianna Mitchell (@Brianna39702494) March 25, 2026
Source: Annie FOS
Lottery picks salary is protected year 1 pic.twitter.com/b3vGVDXDnB
So even if Fudd isn't the first pick in the draft, she still has a much more lucrative contract coming her way compared to what Clark and Bueckers got as rookies.
Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.
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