Draft day for young stars such as Paige Bueckers and Azzi Fudd looked much different than the day Alysha Clark heard her name called 16 years ago.
Bueckers and Fudd, the Dallas Wings’ last two No. 1 picks, walked an orange carpet, wore styles custom-made by designer brand Coach and experienced one of the biggest moments of their lives on primetime.
Clark, who recently signed with the Wings and is one of the oldest active players in the WNBA at 38, remembers taking draft night pictures in a conference room.
“It’s been amazing to be around to watch how it’s evolved over the years,” Clark told The Dallas Morning News on Sunday, when the Wings opened training camp. “Now there’s the orange carpet, just all of these really dope things to make the moment feel as special as it is.”
Selected by the San Antonio Silver Stars in the second round of the 2010 draft, Clark didn’t experience that glitz and glamour. But newcomers and veterans alike will all benefit from the WNBA’s new landmark collective bargaining agreement.
After months of negotiations and deadline extensions, the league and its players union came to terms March 18 on a CBA that increased player salaries and created million-dollar athletes for the first time in the WNBA's 30-year history. Dallas has three of them with All-Star guard Arike Ogunbowale, reigning co-defensive player of the year Alanna Smith and forward Jessica Shepard all earning $1 million or more in 2026, according to the Her Hoops Stats WNBA Salary Cap Database.
The new agreement marked a new dawn for the WNBA and has changed the lives of players across the league, who historically played basketball overseas to make up for low salaries.
“I mean at the time, it was just like that’s what it is,” Clark told The News. “Regardless of the pay, you knew the best players played in this league, and it was a sacrifice.”
But Clark said it was worth it to keep the league alive.
“[We] understood the barriers that we were going up against, and the only way to change that [was] to keep chipping away,” Clark said.
That effort paid off — literally. Under the new CBA, the salary cap increased to $7 million in 2026, up from $1.5 million in 2025. The year-one maximum rose to $1.4 million, and the minimum increased up to $300,000, with average salaries exceeding $583,000. A new rookie contract scale has significantly increased salaries for top draft picks.
As the No. 1 pick in 2026, Fudd will earn $500,000. That’s nearly seven times the rookie salary of last year’s No. 1 pick Bueckers, who earned $78,831 in 2025.
“It is such a privilege to be joining the league at this time and one that I don’t take lightly,” Fudd said Thursday during her introductory news conference in Dallas.
Salaries for Wings players under contract entering 2026 have been scaled up, with Bueckers set to make $500,000 in her sophomore season.
Center Awak Kuier will make $525,000 and forward Maddy Siegrist will earn $501,080.
“I always say that I think I got in at a really great time,” said Siegrist, a first-round pick in 2023, after practice in Arlington on Monday.
Under the new CBA’s Exceptional Performance on Initial Contract (EPIC) provision, Bueckers could fast-track her way to a maximum-level contract while still on a rookie deal. The provision allows top-performing players to renegotiate the final year of their rookie contract as part of a multi-year extension if they earn All-WNBA or MVP honors within their first three years.
Bueckers earned WNBA Rookie of the Year honors in 2025 and picked up All-WNBA Second Team honors.
The Indiana Fever’s Aliyah Boston, drafted No. 1 overall by the team in 2023, signed the WNBA’s first-ever EPIC provision agreement. She became the league’s highest-paid player by signing the groundbreaking, 4-year, $6.3 million deal.
That kind of money was unheard of when the Wings, then the Tulsa Shock, drafted Odyssey Sims in 2014. Sims, who recently signed with Dallas, said on Monday after practice in Arlington that the league is “way different now.”