The Golden State Valkyries announced on May 7 that center Iliana Rupert would miss the 2026 season due to pregnancy. The news prompted the team to file for a replacement contract and await league approval. The situation drew attention not only because of the Valkyries’ roster consequences, but because it arrived on the opening day of a new era in women’s professional sports labor law. The WNBA and the WNBPA ratified a new seven-year CBA in March 2026, and Rupert is one of the first players to benefit from its substantially expanded pregnancy protections.
The background for these new provisions is the 2023 Dearica Hamby controversy. Hamby, then a forward for the Las Vegas Aces, alleged that the team traded her to the Los Angeles Sparks after team personnel learned she was pregnant. She filed a lawsuit alleging that the league and the Aces had “lied to, bullied, manipulated, and discriminated against” her because of her pregnancy. The case exposed the shortcomings of the prior CBA, which treated pregnancy as analogous to an “injury, illness, or condition” and required players who expected pregnancy to interfere with their performance to disclose it before signing contracts. Legal professionals flagged that provision as a potential violation of the federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act of 1978, a Title VII amendment that prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of pregnancy or any related medical condition.
The 2026 CBA responds to those shortcomings. Many in the league call the new provisions the “Hamby Clause.” The agreement now requires teams to obtain a pregnant player’s consent before trading her, effectively creating a no-trade clause that activates upon pregnancy. This provision protects players from the destabilizing mid-pregnancy trade that Hamby alleged she experienced. Additionally, pregnancy is no longer a financial liability that incentivizes teams to move a player off their roster.
The provision behind this change is the new pregnancy and childbirth salary cap exception. Under the prior CBA, a pregnant player’s full salary still counted against the team’s salary cap, which created an economic pressure to trade or cut her. The 2026 CBA removes that incentive by exempting a pregnant player’s salary from the cap calculation, so the team suffers no competitive disadvantage by keeping her on the roster. For Rupert and the Valkyries, this means the team can file for a replacement contract to fill her spot while continuing to honor her contract, without that salary penalizing Golden State’s ability to build out the rest of its roster.
The CBA also expands access to family planning benefits. Under the previous agreement, only players with eight or more years of service could access benefits covering fertility treatments, egg freezing, adoption, and surrogacy, and those benefits did not extend to spouses or partners. The 2026 CBA lowers the service threshold to two years and extends the benefits to spouses and partners as well. This change is significant for a league where the average career spans fewer than five seasons, meaning the prior eight-year threshold effectively excluded the majority of players.
Other meaningful protections in the agreement are players on maternity leave can receive 100 percent of their base salary, and teams must provide childcare stipends of up to $5,000 per year, housing accommodations for players with children, and dedicated lactation facilities. The CBA also adds two weeks of paid paternal leave for non-birthing parents, a benefit the prior agreement did not include.
Rupert’s pregnancy will be one of the first tests of these new provisions. As the league works through the process of approving the Valkyries’ replacement contract request, players will watch how the league administers the cap expectation and whether the consent-before-trade protection holds up in practice. The 2026 CBA ratified with over 90 percent player participation and near-unanimous approval, proving that the players who negotiated it view these protections as fundamental. Whether the league’s administration of those protections matches the text of the agreement is the next question Rupert’s pregnancy will help answer.
Sources
Eric Jackson, WNBA Players Prioritize Child Care, Family Benefits in CBA Fight, Sportico (May 30, 2025).
Nicole Childers, The WNBA’s New CBA Is Changing the Math on Motherhood for Players, NewsOne (May 8, 2026).
Sara Coello, Dearica Hamby’s pregnancy allegations: What do laws, WNBA CBA say?, ESPN (Jul. 11, 2023).
Golden State Valkyries Official Release (May 7, 2026).