CHICAGO — Isabelle Harrison isn’t used to rest.
When the WNBA season ended, the forward was accustomed to her offseason routine: jet lag, international flights, two-a-day practices and tournaments with a club team halfway around the world. This is standard operating procedure for WNBA players, most of whom spend the entire offseason playing in European leagues.
But this year looks different for Harrison, one of 10 WNBA athletes who accepted a player marketing agreement through the league. For those involved, the PMA program offers a cherished rarity: time.
“I’m only 29,” the new Chicago Sky player told the Chicago Tribune. “I’m finally resting. My body — it’s entirely different.”
Playing in two leagues isn’t a practice born purely out of love for the game — it’s a necessity. WNBA athletes earned an average salary of $102,751 in 2022, compared with the NBA average of $9.7 million. The WNBA season spans only 40 games, providing less opportunity for both competition and exposure in the U.S.
As a result, WNBA players go to Europe for lucrative contracts and intense competition. But this also creates a complete lack of physical balance for players, who forgo preventive rest, recovery and treatment — like Connecticut Sun forward Alyssa Thomas, who adjusted her shooting form to play multiple seasons with two torn labrums due to lack of time for surgery.
For Harrison and Sky teammate Kahleah Copper, the PMA program has offered physical relief. Copper used the extra time afforded to begin weight lifting for the first time in her career, a step she feels already has paid off in speed and explosiveness.
“The way that my body feels, being able to work on my skills beyond a game, beyond the competition — it’s huge,” Copper told the Tribune. “I’m used to playing all year, but that can wear you down. This opportunity is huge for me in terms of rest but being able to make a living.”
Copper and Harrison were selected for this year’s program with eight other WNBA players: Arike Ogunbowale, Ariel Atkins, Dearica Hamby, Diamond DeShields, DiDi Richards, Kelsey Mitchell, Napheesa Collier and Jasmine Thomas.
The group showcases the league’s goal to target younger players on a rising trajectory. But it also reflects a growing desire to keep its best players stateside year-round as the WNBA approaches prioritization, a new mechanism aimed at ending the two-season pattern.
This year, all players with three or more years of experience in the WNBA will face fines if they do no report to camp by May 19. These fines will increase incrementally for each day missed and could eventually result in a full-season suspension. In 2024, players will face the same penalties if they don’t report by either the start of training camp or May 1, depending on which date comes first.
Along with those punitive restrictions, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert hopes the PMA program will offer a steeper incentive for more players to stay in the U.S. during the offseason.
“We knew that if we could find ways to pay the players more in the offseason to do marketing on behalf of the league that prioritization for that subset of players would become a no-brainer,” Engelbert told the Tribune.
The WNBA budgeted $1 million for the PMA program this season with each player’s earnings capped at $250,000. Only three players — Betnijah Laney, Hamby and Collier — were selected in the program’s first year, which was less extensive because of restrictions caused by the Omicron wave of the pandemic. But this year, the league has been able to expand to a more full-fledged concept.
PMA players spend their offseason partnering with league-affiliated events tailored to their own interests: walking the runway at New York Fashion Week, making appearances at their college alma maters, speaking to young athletes at NBA All-Star Weekend.
Engelbert knows the program won’t appeal to every WNBA athlete. For instance, 2021 MVP Jonquel Jones turned down an offer to instead play in the Turkish league. But for players such as Copper, the program has offered a much-needed chance to breathe.
For the first time in years, Copper hasn’t had to choose basketball over crucial life events — Valentine’s Day, her nieces’ birthdays — that were previously the natural casualties of a year divided between two leagues and two continents.
For Harrison, the prospect of an offseason not cramped into a handful of weeks feels almost luxurious.
“That’s something that I’ve never had,” she said. “Every time I came back into the States, I was planning everything I missed out on. But now I have ample time.”
The PMA program is one facet of an initiative to increase marketability and offseason financial support for players. Teams are required to spend at least $50,000 — with a cap of $100,000 — on their own marketing agreements designed to embed players into the fabric of their local markets. They also can offer $50,000 bonuses for time off to incentivize players to stay put in the offseason.
Through these mechanisms, Engelbert hopes the league can create flexibility in how players expand their revenue streams outside of their team salaries.
“It’s not one size fits all for any one player,” Engelbert said.
This is a learning opportunity: The WNBA still is growing its ability to activate through corporate partners, who Engelbert said often don’t fully understand the scope of pairing with individual players.
“This is all part of the broader landscape of how we’re trying to elevate the players’ brands so that they’re more known, they’re more recognized,” Engelbert said. “That will drive higher valuation of any new partnership, whether it’s a patch on their uniform, a place on the court, a personal endorsement from a player.”
Player marketing agreements will continue to expand, and the combined budget for team and league agreements will increase to $2.2 million in 2024. But the ultimate goal is for the program to become obsolete as players and brands establish — and maintain — their own ecosystem.
In the meantime, the league will look to its players for new opportunities.
Copper hopes to see more players invited into the PMA program next season. Harrison believes a deeper connection with the Athletes Unlimited league — which was broadcast on the WNBA League Pass this year — would provide another outlet for players to balance hoops and rest.
But both agree the initial year of the program has been a critical improvement to create a more feasible future in which WNBA players play only in the WNBA.
“What we’re doing right now is baby steps,” Copper said. “Whether this is a test or trial or whatever you want to call it, this has been an amazing ride and it will only grow from here.”
