The 2026 WNBA regular season has revolved around the idea of remembering league history, but next season in 2027, the league will continue to make its own. Last week the league announced that for the first time ever the regular season will consist of 50 games — rather than 44 — plus a full playoff slate.
“Demand for the WNBA has never been greater, and expanding to a 50-game regular season reflects the extraordinary momentum we are seeing across the league,” WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in a league release. “This move reflects our commitment to growing the game and creating more opportunities for fans to watch the best players in the world and experience the extraordinary talent and competition that define the WNBA.”
SCHEDULE: Check out the full WNBA on NBC, Peacock slate of games
The WNBA continues to enjoy increases in viewership and attendance while riding the platforms of players that actually were given the tools and investment to be marketed properly.
This decision to expand reflects the fine print in the league’s 2026 collective bargaining agreement (CBA) that was agreed to in March by the league and the players union and finally signed last month. The CBA states that the regular season cannot exceed over 44 games in 2026, cannot exceed 50 games in both 2027 and 2028, and cannot go above 52 regular season games in 2029.
The 2027 season won’t include any major FIBA tournaments like this season will in September with the 2026 World Cup in Berlin. As a result, that set the stage for the league to use its discretion laid out in the CBA to expand the number of regular season games.
Season expansion is also the result of general league expansion. Throughout the term of the new 2026 CBA, three more teams from Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia will all join the league by 2030. Eighteen total teams need to be able to play 17 opponents multiple times, and expanding the number of regular season games just does that.
And since players’ salaries are expanding as the league’s business grows—a topic I will dive into at a different time—more games means more money for the players.
Sep 30, 2025; Las Vegas, Nevada, USA; Las Vegas Aces center A’ja Wilson (22) celebrates with Las Vegas Aces guard Jewell Loyd (24) near the end of an overtime period against the Indiana Fever during game five of the second round for the 2025 WNBA Playoffs at Michelob Ultra Arena. Mandatory Credit: Stephen R. Sylvanie-Imagn Images
Stephen R. Sylvanie/Stephen R. Sylvanie-Imagn Images
When four-time WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson was asked to react to the news after the Las Vegas Aces’ win over the Mercury that allowed them to clinch an appearance in the Commissioner’s Cup Championship, Wilson was clearly exhausted from having just played and didn’t want to think about more games.
“Let me get through these games this season and then I’ll double back and talk to you when we get there,” she said at first.
But then she provided her thoughts. “I ain’ t got nothin’ else to do, this is my job,” she said. “Now granted, that’s going to be a lot, but we’ll get through it.”
Wilson’s sentiment revealed a two-fold reaction that players and coaches are both having in response to this news. Playing more games is a result of league success, which also means more of an opportunity for WNBA players to be seen.
There’s a clear consensus that success of the league is positive for all involved. But, what about when injuries across the league are up?
According to The IX Sports’ Lucas Seehafer’s WNBA injury tracker, the first 48 days of the 2026 regular season yielded at least 139 injuries. Compare that to the first 48 days of the 2025 regular season that produced 121 total injuries.
“We just need to make sure that we protect the players in that,” Los Angeles Sparks head coach Lynn Roberts said this past Saturday about adding more games. “If it’s kept in the same window that we have now, how is that going to look? We just bounced after the Minnesota game was our fourth game in seven days. Those are hard on players.”
And for the Sparks in particular, their top scorer Kelsey Plum, an All-Star lock, is going to miss at least the next month with a left lower leg injury after she sprained her right ankle at the end of last month.
Last week, Kelsey Plum talked with Russo Writes about her physical well-being: “If you rush to come back the way I did, you’re going to put yourself a little bit at a risk.” Plum suffered a right ankle injury on May 26. Now, it’s her left leg impacted: justinrusso.substack.com/p/plum-burde...
— Justin Russo (@flybyknite.bsky.social) 2026-06-24T16:14:27.808Z
So, what’s the solution?
“We’re just gonna have to take care of our bodies more, be more intentional with recovery and all that,” Mystics second-year wing Sonia Citron told NBC Sports.
There’s an argument to be made that some of what is codified in the 2026 CBA addresses some of these concerns and provides many more resources than before for players to be as intentional with their recovery as possible.
What does the new CBA provide to address injury concerns?
In order for players to stay healthy, there needs to be much more infrastructure league wide to make that happen. The new CBA looks to address these concerns in four ways: increasing medical staffs for every team, improved practice facilities league wide, charter flights, and mandated use of the league’s electronic medical records system (EMR).
According to the CBA, teams need to have at least two physicians on staff and at least one needs to be an orthopedic surgeon and the other needs to be certified in internal medicine. Teams also need two athletic trainers where one is the head trainer and the other one is an assistant trainer. Both positions need to be full time. Other full-time roles that weren’t required previously by the league include a director of sports medicine, a strength and conditioning coach, a physical therapist, and a massage therapist. Teams must also provide players with a nutritionist or dietician, but the CBA doesn’t specify if this person needs to be a full-time employee.
Facility standards were implemented into the 2026 CBA so that teams couldn’t have their athletes practice at local rec centers or at the same facility where a child’s birthday party was going on. (Yes, these were some of the main examples of ownership groups that didn’t properly invest in their athletes.) With the new CBA, teams are required to provide players with practice facilities by 2028 that must include a locker room exclusively for the team. The facility must have enough lockers, bathrooms and showers in addition to a separate weight room and cardio space, a treatment room and a court that’s the WNBA’s standard size.
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - JUNE 09: Elizabeth Williams #1 of the Chicago Sky dribbles against the Atlanta Dream during the second half at Wintrust Arena on June 09, 2026 in Chicago, Illinois. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
Getty Images
One section of the CBA also officially codifies charter plane travel, even though players have spoken about how the program hasn’t been as consistent. Chicago Sky center and players union secretary Elizabeth Williams told the Chicago Sun Times that teams sometimes get smaller planes for longer flights and larger ones for shorter flights.
The 2026 CBA’s language is also a lot stricter about the team’s use of EMR. The 2020 iteration of the CBA explained that the EMR was going to be developed and used, but now there is a firm mandate that the WNBA “will require teams” to use the EMR throughout the terms of the agreement. By July 1 of this year, there will be an app for players to use so they can directly access it.
This comes following a 2023 report from Seehafer that laid out how much teams weren’t taking injury tracking seriously, which led to incomplete data that the league and medical researchers could use to understand women athletes better and curtail the injury epidemic around the league.
But even with more professionalized care and charter flights written deep in the CBA, injuries are still up in 2026, although there are less hardship contracts being signed.
As of now just six hardship contracts have been signed so far this season, while that number was double at this point last season. Roster expansion and in particular the two developmental players that each team has at their disposal has been key. But still there are WNBA head coaches who believe that rosters still shouldn’t be as small as they are, and developmental players should have more opportunities to play than just 12 games out of what will be a 50 game season in 2027.
“Hopefully, my knees will be all right,” Mystics wing Michaela Onyenwere said. “But yeah, I’m excited for the growth.”
What questions and unknowns remain?
Part of the main concern that comes from both players and coaches around the league is the worry that season expansion won’t necessarily mean an expansion of the WNBA’s total footprint. Brittney Griner recently explained that while she welcomes more games and more money for players, the total number of days that the season stretches to needs to increase.
Sparks coach Lynn Roberts was hopeful and wondered that maybe this season’s FIBA break from August 31 to September 16 because of September’s World Cup is what will allow for six more regular seasons to be played next year.
“You can fit six games in that break that we have for that,” she said. “I don’t know how it’s going to work out, I’m sure people smarter than me have thought it all through.”
So, how does the CBA address game cadence and season footprint?
The league is going to consult its “medical director and the players association” before finalizing a schedule. However, there aren’t a ton of specifics listed as to what is allowed and what isn’t when it comes to regular season game cadence, but there is a rule listed about back-to-back game days, a schedule feature that puts the most strain on all involved.
There are going to be “good faith efforts” made by the league to provide “at least 20 hours between the scheduled start” between the team’s first game of a back-to-back and the second. It’s still all a bit vague.
A longer season is going to create a host of different calculations from players born out of the United States especially. When German center Luisa Geiselsöder of the Portland Fire was asked to react to the news, she explained how much she’s going to want to continue to play as much as she can—in the WNBA, for an overseas club team and for her German national team.
“It’s going to be tough,” she said. “I’m going to be honest. I’m definitely going to play as long as I can. As long as my body does it, I will be doing that.”
But what if her body doesn’t hold up? She’ll have to make a choice, which is exactly what Mercury head coach Nate Tibbetts, who was a longtime NBA assistant coach, predicted the schedule increasing in this way was going to cause.
“The hope is that more players just play in the W, right?” he said. “The more games, the more money, the [calendar] window hopefully expanding, less pressure for our players to play overseas and play year-round. I think that’s one of the beauties of the NBA is the offseason and players getting better through being in the weight room and the mental break.”
Nate Tibbetts's thoughts on the WNBA expanding to 50 games in the 2027 regular season.
— Hayden Cilley (@HaydenCilley) June 18, 2026
"I still can't wrap my head around the pressures and the grind that some of our players have to do year-round, but that's been going on for 15-20 years... my hope is that this is the league… pic.twitter.com/qe4mrRCUZc
What does the fine print in the CBA say about the footprint of the league? It’s a bit vague, but does provide some clues. Beginning in 2027, the earliest training camps can begin is April 1 and the longest the season can run is until November 21, including the full postseason. However, the 2028 season (including playoffs) can run until November 30.
What stands out here is that both the league and the players union have added around an extra month of padding at both the beginning of the season and then at the end. 2028 in particular takes into account that there will be a full break for the Olympic games that will take place in Los Angeles. Previously, training camps typically began at the end of April, and the playoffs ended by the penultimate week in October at the very latest.
The main takeaway here is there’s going to be a bit more wiggle room than there’s been in the league’s history, although conflict could potentially arise for rookies in April and players who want to continue to play overseas in November.
