Reference desk · United States Updated 3 August 2026

Every figure here comes from a document you can open yourself.

Basketball · published WNBA scale

Maya Moore’s salary, and the WNBA pay scale before 2020

Maya Moore’s WNBA base salary was $117,000 in both 2017 and 2018: close to the maximum the league’s pay scale allowed at the time, and roughly half of what the scale would allow at the top of the market four years later. The documents that fix those limits are published; the salary itself was reported, and it fits the scale.

Base salary in 2017 and in 2018
$117,000

Her reported base salary in each of those seasons, under the pay scale in force before the 2020 agreement raised the ceiling and added a supermax above it.

An empty locker room with wooden stalls and bare hangers, one bench down the centre
RegisterThe NBA and WNBA publish their pay scales in the collective bargaining agreement; the individual contracts are announced, not filed.

The scale explains the figure better than the figure explains the career

For most of her time in the league the maximum base salary in the WNBA was capped in the low six figures by the agreement then in force. A player at the very top of the sport therefore earned a domestic salary of roughly the kind quoted above, whatever her standing. The number is small not because of what she was worth to her club but because the ceiling sat where it did.

That ceiling moved in 2020. The agreement signed that year raised the maximum base salary substantially and introduced a supermax above it, along with prize pools and marketing arrangements defined in the same document. Comparing a 2017 salary with a 2022 one therefore says more about the agreements than about the players.

The ceiling, before and after the 2020 agreement
SeasonTop of the published base-salary scaleSet by
2017–2018Low six figures: the era of the $117,000 salary aboveThe agreement then in force
2022$228,094 supermax base salaryThe 2020 collective bargaining agreement

Both rows come from published agreements. The change between them is the story of pay in this league far more than any individual negotiation is.

What the record holds beyond pay

A public records counter in a stone corridor with a wire basket of stapled filings and a brass lamp
Public recordSome of the best-documented parts of a sporting life sit in court records rather than sports registers.

Her competition record is documented in full by the bodies that ran the competitions: league championships, a most-valuable-player award, Olympic gold medals, and a college career the NCAA records the same way. Awards and titles are counts published by organisers, and they need no qualification.

She also stepped away from the sport at the peak of her career to work on a criminal case, which is public record in a different sense: court filings and published rulings rather than sports registers. It is documented, and it is not financial.

Why no net worth figure appears

Overseas club contracts, endorsements, book income and speaking work are private. For players of her era an overseas winter salary frequently exceeded the WNBA figure, and none of those contracts is published. Any total offered as her wealth would be built by guessing at every component.

The published parts (the pay scales, the competition record, the court record) are what this page sets out. The test each of them had to pass is the same one applied across the site.

Questions readers send

How much did Maya Moore earn in the WNBA?

Her base salary was reported at $117,000 in both 2017 and 2018, close to the maximum the pay scale allowed at the time. The 2020 agreement later raised the ceiling substantially.

Why were WNBA salaries so much lower then?

Because the agreement in force set the maximum base salary in the low six figures. The 2020 agreement raised it, added a supermax, and introduced prize pools and marketing deals defined in the same document.

Did she earn more outside the league?

Overseas salaries, endorsements and other work are private and unpublished. For many players of that era the overseas figure exceeded the domestic one, but no register records the amounts.

Is anything documented about the years she spent away from the game?

Yes, though not by a sports register. She stepped away at the peak of her career to work on a criminal case, and that work is public record in a different sense: court filings and published rulings rather than league tables. It is among the better-documented parts of her life, and none of it is financial.

Where these figures are published

  1. 01 WNBA and Women’s National Basketball Players Association, Exact maximum, supermax and minimum base salaries per season, including the 2022 supermax of $228,094 and the veteran minimum of $72,141 2020 collective bargaining agreement, salary scale tables
  2. 02 WNBA and club salary announcements, 2017 and 2018 seasons, The $117,000 base salary in each of those seasons Coverage of league pay during those seasons

More in this register

All of them