The Indiana Fever will face a major salary cap squeeze under the WNBA's new Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) as soon as 2027.

WNBA analyst Rachel DeMita has been saying it for months: this era of Fever basketball is "championship or bust." On her Courtside Club podcast in late August, she broke down the reason once again.

"If we want to just quickly talk about the salary situation with the Indiana Fever. So, Aliyah Boston is on her epic contract. So, Aliyah Boston unlocked this maximum contract deal—the supermax deal, essentially—during her fourth season because of the new CBA rules," DeMita said, per a video shared by Courtside Club on X.

The rule DeMita is referring to is the new EPIC clause—Exceptional Players on Initial Contracts.

Under previous rules, young stars had to wait years before negotiating top-tier veteran salaries. Under the new CBA, any player still on their rookie deal who earns an All-WNBA selection can renegotiate their fourth-year salary.

Boston earned All-WNBA Second Team honors in 2025 and unlocked her eligibility for a four-year, $6.3 million extension, pushing her average annual salary well above $1 million.

"Now, Caitlin Clark will also be eligible for a max contract next season because of this provision. She will be eligible for a supermax contract if she wins MVP this season," DeMita continued, per the same video shared by Courtside Club on X.

Clark’s rookie-scale salary increases to roughly $530,000 for the 2026 season under the bumped rookie wage scale.

Because Clark earned an All-WNBA First Team nod in her 2024 rookie season, she also qualifies for an expedited max contract as early as 2027, projected at around $1.3 million.

If she won an MVP award, that number climbs straight into the supermax tier of $1.4 million or more.

Then there's Kelsey Mitchell, who's already cored by Indiana in April and signed a one-year deal at the league's new supermax: $1.4 million.

"Kelsey Mitchell is also on a max contract deal. So, with that math, and what we've kind of all been talking about for this season—why I have been saying for the Fever, it's championship or bust," DeMita explained.

Add it up, and Indiana's three stars alone account for roughly $2.9 million of this year's $7 million cap — before Clark's number even starts climbing. That's the surplus DeMita is talking about.

"Because you have three supermax-eligible players, or at least max-eligible players, for the squad next year," she added.

Right now, Clark is still the most team-friendly bargain in the league relative to her actual impact. And that gap is what's letting the Fever field a deep and veteran roster around her.

Once she signs her max — or supermax — that surplus disappears for good, and it isn't coming back.

So what happens to the Fever Next?

One doesn't have to wait until 2027 to see the squeeze. It's already changing Indiana's roster.

Natasha Howard, part of Indiana's playoff rotation last season, left in free agency for the Minnesota Lynx this offseason rather than take a smaller Fever deal.

With Clark, Boston, Mitchell, Lexie Hull ($765,000 in year one of a two-year, $1.6 million deal) and Sophie Cunningham (one year, $665,000) all on the books, Indiana was left with only a sliver of cap space and had to fill out the rest of a mandatory 12-player roster with rookies and minimum-salary players.

To remain cap-compliant in future seasons, Indiana will likely have to surround their Big Three with minimum-salary players and unproven draft picks, sacrificing the bench depth and defensive role players required to survive the new 44+ game WNBA schedule.

Even with that, if the front office feels a top-heavy payroll cannot support a viable championship rotation, they may eventually be forced to break up the core—most likely letting a veteran like Mitchell walk in free agency.

Written by

Md Saife Fida