Women’s professional basketball salaries have exploded in recent years, and Cunningham’s career – as a seasoned guard who has been with the league since 2019 – is a living timeline of how far things have come.
If you want a sense of how much salaries have risen, look no further than the fact that, when Cunningham entered the league in 2019, she made just $28,000 as a rookie with the Phoenix Mercury.
Born and raised in Missouri as a rough-and-tumble, lightning-quick project, Cunningham made her WNBA debut during a time when scaled pay structures were a far cry from modern standards. In those days, the typical rookie deal just exceeded five figures, and numerous players relied on playing professional basketball internationally in the off-season in order to earn a livable wage.
Cunningham’s first few seasons played out the same way, as she toiled to establish herself as a fearless player, beloved teammate and locker room guy in a league that lacked much-in-the-way of revenue sharing and mainstream awareness.
Fast forward to today, and the economics of the WNBA have changed nearly beyond recognition.
Thanks to a series of groundbreaking collective bargaining agreements and a staggering increase in broadcast rights, corporate sponsorships and digital consumption, superstar players now earn more money than ever.
Cunningham herself just inked a one-year, $665,000 deal with the Indiana Fever – a mark of her value as one of the league’s top veterans on the court.
In addition to her earnings on the court, Cunningham’s lucrative off-court business-musical collaborations, big-name national sponsorship deals, high-profile media gigs, modeling contracts and her already-successful podcasting platform-says much about how far women’s basketball players have come.
Looking back at her humble $28,000 rookie salary provides a vital reminder of her own grit and the cultural tide that’s lifting the WNBA into uncharted territory.
