There's another factor to this that many people (understandably) don't know about: another league.
A new 3v3 league called Unrivaled just had a fairly successful debut this spring and it offers players much better pay.
Outkick story for more context: Archived, or not.

Co-founded by WNBA stars Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier, Unrivaled played its inaugural season in the spring of 2025. The league aims to give players an alternative option to going overseas during the offseason. It pays better and provides players more off-the-court resources than they get in the WNBA.
For its first season, Unrivaled secured $35 million from a laundry list of investors that included celebrity names like Giannis Antetokounmpo, Michael Phelps, Dawn Staley, Coco Gauff, Alex Morgan, Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis, along with several others.
Incredibly, the league nearly broke even — and it did so without superstar Caitlin Clark.
Unrivaled banked more than $27 million in revenue in its first year, according to a league source. The money was largely from a lucrative media deal with TNT, plus a roster of big-time corporate sponsors — like Ally Financial, Samsung Galaxy, Sephora and Miller Lite, just to name a few.
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During its inaugural season, each of Unrivaled's 36 players earned a six-figure salary for the eight-week season, with an average salary of $222,222. That's higher than the WNBA's regular max contract of $214,466 for 2025.
And it looks like those numbers are only going to get larger. Earlier this year, the WNBA's 2025 No. 1 overall draft pick Paige Bueckers signed a three-year deal with Unrivaled. The 23-year-old will make $350,000 in her first season with the 3-on-3 league.