Paige Bueckers Net Worth 2026: From NIL Pioneer to WNBA’s $9 Million Rookie Star

Paige Bueckers’ net worth is about $1.5 million, according to the widely cited estimate Fortune reported in September 2025, based on On3 data from her final college season. That figure is almost certainly out of date. Forbes estimates she earned $9.1 million in 2025 alone, nearly all of it from endorsements, so her real wealth today is likely well above it.

Paige Bueckers: quick facts

Net worth

$1.5 Million

Salary / earnings

$500 Thousand per year

Source of wealth

Endorsements, WNBA salary, Unrivaled

Profession

Basketball Player

Nationality

American

Place of birth

Edina, Minnesota, United States

Date of birth

October 20, 2001 (age 24)

Bueckers was a star long before she turned pro. She was the first freshman to sweep every national Player of the Year award, became one of the top earners of the NCAA’s name, image and likeness (NIL) era, and won the 2025 national championship with UConn. Days later, the Dallas Wings made her the No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft.

Her pay has climbed fast since then. She won Rookie of the Year in 2025, her WNBA salary jumped from about $79,000 to $500,000 under the league’s new labor deal in 2026, and she holds an ownership stake in the Unrivaled 3-on-3 league.

Paige Bueckers at a glance

• Net worth: about $1.5 million (widely cited estimate, Fortune, September 2025); likely higher today
• Born: October 20, 2001, in Edina, Minnesota
• Profession: professional basketball player (point guard)
• Teams: UConn Huskies (2020–2025), Dallas Wings (2025–present), Breeze BC in Unrivaled (2026–present)
• Biggest payday: about $9 million in endorsement income in 2025 (Forbes)
• Awards: 2025 NCAA champion, 2021 national Player of the Year, 2025 WNBA Rookie of the Year, two-time WNBA All-Star
• Partner: Wings teammate Azzi Fudd

Where Paige Bueckers’ money comes from

Source	Details	Estimate
Endorsements	Nike, Gatorade, Bose, Intuit, Coach, DoorDash, CeraVe and more	About $9 million in 2025 (Forbes)
WNBA salary	Four-year rookie-scale contract with the Dallas Wings	$500,000 in 2026
Unrivaled	Three-year playing deal plus equity in the league	Year-one pay reportedly topped her entire original rookie deal
College NIL (2021–2025)	Deals with more than 25 companies while at UConn	On3 valued her NIL at $1.4 million for 2024–25
Equity stakes	Unrivaled, Madison Reed, Overtime, Good Eat’n	Values not disclosed

Contract and earnings by year

Her WNBA salary is set by the league’s rookie scale, not by negotiation. The new collective bargaining agreement (CBA) raised those salaries sharply starting in 2026.

Year	Item	Amount
2024–25	College NIL valuation (On3)	$1.4 million
2025	WNBA rookie salary, Dallas Wings	$78,831
2025	Total earnings, salary plus endorsements (Forbes)	$9.1 million
2026	WNBA salary under the new CBA	$500,000
2027	WNBA salary (scheduled)	$550,000

Under the old rules, her four-year rookie deal was worth just $348,198 in total. Under the new CBA, her 2026 salary alone is worth more than that.

Early life

Paige Madison Bueckers was born on October 20, 2001, in Edina, Minnesota, and grew up in nearby St. Louis Park. Her father, Bob, a software engineer and former high school point guard, coached her until seventh grade. Her mother, Amy, ran cross country and track in college.

She joined the varsity team at Hopkins High School in eighth grade. Hopkins won the Minnesota state title in 2019 with a 32–0 record, and she left school holding team records for points (2,877), assists and steals.

As a senior in 2020 she was named Gatorade National Player of the Year and Gatorade Female Athlete of the Year, plus Naismith Prep Player of the Year. ESPN ranked her the No. 1 recruit in her class.

UConn career

A record-setting freshman year

Bueckers averaged 20.0 points and 5.8 assists as a freshman in 2020–21. She won the AP, Naismith, USBWA and Wooden Player of the Year awards, becoming the first freshman ever to take them. She also won the ESPY for Best Female College Athlete.

Injuries and comeback

The next two years tested her. She broke her left tibial plateau in December 2021 but returned to lead UConn to the 2022 national title game. Then she tore her left ACL in August 2022 and missed the whole 2022–23 season.

She came back in 2023–24, averaged 21.9 points and was named Big East Player of the Year. Though projected as a top-three WNBA pick, she chose to return to UConn for one more season.

The 2025 national title

Her final season was her best. She scored a career-high 40 points against Oklahoma in the Sweet 16, and on April 6, 2025, UConn beat South Carolina 82–59 for the national championship. She finished with 2,439 career points and won the Wade Trophy and the Honda Sports Award.

College NIL earnings

Bueckers was one of the first college stars to cash in when the NCAA allowed NIL deals in July 2021. She signed with the agency Wasserman that August and filed a trademark for her nickname, “Paige Buckets.”

Key college deals included:

• StockX and Gatorade (November 2021), making her Gatorade’s first college athlete
• Cash App (February 2022) and Chegg (March 2022)
• Nike (September 2023), which later produced the first player-edition shoe for an NIL athlete
• Unrivaled (August 2024), an NIL deal that came with equity in the league
• Bose, Crocs, Verizon, CeraVe, Dunkin’, Panini, Madison Reed and others

By her senior year, On3 valued her NIL at about $1.4 million, second among women’s basketball players behind LSU’s Flau’jae Johnson. Sportico reported she had deals with more than 25 companies while at UConn, nearly half of them multiyear.

The money arrived quickly. Bueckers has said she did not have a bank account five years before turning pro and borrowed her mother’s credit card for gas in college. “It happened super fast, and I really wasn’t prepared for it,” she told Fortune in 2025.

WNBA career with the Dallas Wings

Rookie of the Year in 2025

Dallas took Bueckers first overall in April 2025. She signed the standard rookie-scale deal: four years and $348,198, with a first-year salary of $78,831.

On the court she was worth far more:

• 19.2 points, 5.4 assists and 3.9 rebounds per game across 36 starts
• 44 points against Los Angeles on August 20, the most ever by a WNBA rookie
• All-Star starter, All-WNBA Second Team and Rookie of the Year, with 70 of 72 votes

The team struggled, finishing 10–34, last in the league.

2026: a raise and a playoff run

In March 2026 the WNBA and its players’ union agreed on a new seven-year CBA running through 2032. It lifted the salary cap from about $1.5 million to $7 million, set a maximum salary of $1.4 million, and created the first revenue-sharing model in women’s sports. Rookie-scale salaries rose too, and Bueckers’ 2026 pay jumped from a scheduled $80,408 to $500,000.

Under new coach Jose Fernandez, Dallas went 27–17, its best season in years. The Wings also added her partner, Azzi Fudd, as the No. 1 pick in the 2026 draft. Bueckers averaged 20.9 points and 5.9 assists while shooting 51.2%, started her second All-Star Game and finished sixth in MVP voting. Dallas lost to the Golden State Valkyries 2–1 in the first round.

What comes next

Bueckers is scheduled to earn $550,000 in 2027. The new CBA also includes an “EPIC” extension that lets players who make an All-WNBA team or win MVP early in their careers earn a raise in their fourth season. Forbes noted she will be eligible for it. Once her rookie deal ends, she can sign a maximum contract for the first time.

Unrivaled

Bueckers’ link to Unrivaled, the 3-on-3 league founded by Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart, began in college. Her 2024 NIL deal made her the first college athlete with an ownership stake in a pro league, and she confirmed her investment publicly in April 2025.

That same month, ESPN reported she had signed a three-year playing deal. Her first-year Unrivaled pay was reported to exceed the entire value of her original four-year WNBA contract, though the exact figure is not public.

Playing for Breeze BC in early 2026, she averaged about 22 points, made the All-Unrivaled First Team and won the league’s first Free Throw Challenge, worth $50,000. She is set to return for a second season.

Endorsements

Endorsements are by far her biggest income stream. Forbes counted 16 partnerships in 2025 worth an estimated $9 million, ranking her No. 16 among the world’s highest-paid female athletes.

• Nike: multiyear shoe deal since 2023; her GT Hustle 3 player edition sold half its sizes within an hour in December 2024
• Gatorade: a partner since 2021
• Coach, DoorDash and Intuit: named by Forbes among her 2025 partners; the Intuit deal focuses on financial literacy
• Bose, CeraVe, Ally, CarMax, Secret and Google: other reported partners
• Equity: stakes in Unrivaled, Madison Reed, Overtime and Chris Paul’s snack brand Good Eat’n

Her star power also helps her team. In December 2025 Forbes ranked the Wings 10th on its first list of the most valuable women’s sports teams.

Real estate

There are no reliable public reports of home purchases by Bueckers, so no property figures are included here.

Personal life

Bueckers is in a relationship with Azzi Fudd, her former UConn teammate and now her teammate in Dallas. The two have been close since they were teenagers and confirmed their relationship in 2025.

Off the court she has been named to the TIME100 Next list (2025) and Fortune’s 40 Under 40 (2022). She made her senior U.S. national team debut in March 2026. She turns 25 on October 20, 2026.

Philanthropy

Bueckers uses her platform for causes she cares about:

• Paige Bueckers Foundation: launched with Cash App in 2022 to support social justice and families
• Food insecurity: with Chegg, she opened a pop-up grocery market in Minneapolis for college students
• “Buckets with Bueckers”: charity clinics for young athletes in Minnesota and Montana
• Social justice: she used her 2021 ESPY speech to highlight unequal media coverage of Black women athletes

How Paige Bueckers compares

Forbes does not publish net worth estimates for WNBA players, so this table compares their 2025 earnings instead.

Athlete	2025 earnings (Forbes)	Main source
Coco Gauff (tennis)	$33 million	Prize money and endorsements
Caitlin Clark	$12.1 million	Endorsements
Sabrina Ionescu	$10.5 million	Endorsements
Angel Reese	$9.4 million	Endorsements
Paige Bueckers	$9.1 million	Endorsements

Figures are from Forbes’ list of the world’s highest-paid female athletes, published December 2025. Bueckers is one of four basketball players in the top 20, and the only one who was still in college for part of the year. For context on how pay changes across sports, see our list of the richest athletes, from Shaquille O’Neal to Cristiano Ronaldo.

Frequently asked questions

How much is Paige Bueckers worth?

The most widely cited estimate is about $1.5 million, reported by Fortune in September 2025. With Forbes estimating she earned $9.1 million in 2025, her current net worth is likely higher.

How much does Paige Bueckers make with the Dallas Wings?

Her WNBA salary is $500,000 in 2026, up from $78,831 as a rookie in 2025, thanks to the league’s new CBA. She is scheduled to earn $550,000 in 2027.

How much did Paige Bueckers earn in 2025?

About $9.1 million, according to Forbes, including about $9 million from endorsements.

Does Paige Bueckers have a Nike deal?

Yes. She signed a multiyear deal with Nike in 2023 and became the first NIL athlete with her own Nike player-edition shoe in 2024.

Does Paige Bueckers own part of Unrivaled?

Yes. Her 2024 NIL deal with the 3-on-3 league included equity, and she also signed a three-year playing contract in 2025.

Who is richer, Paige Bueckers or Caitlin Clark?

Caitlin Clark earns more. Forbes estimated Clark’s 2025 earnings at $12.1 million, compared with $9.1 million for Bueckers.

Sources: Forbes (highest-paid female athletes 2025, WNBA rookie salaries 2026, most valuable women’s sports teams 2025), Fortune (September 2025), Sportico, On3, ESPN, SportsPro, Her Hoops Stats, Basketball Reference, Wikipedia. All net worth and earnings figures are estimates.