Aces' Becky Hammon to Be 1st WNBA Head Coach with Annual Salary Exceeding $1M

New Las Vegas Aces head coach Becky Hammon will become the first WNBA coach to exceed $1 million in annual salary.

Aces owner Mark Davis, who also owns the NFL's Las Vegas Raiders, confirmed the news to Sam Gordon of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and discussed the importance of that seven-figure benchmark.

"Little girls, guys, anybody can look at her and say, 'She's just like me. A small basketball player who's retired and she got the job and she's making a million dollars. I can do that too.' ... That was really important to me to bring in that kind of value," Davis said Monday.

Hammon, a six-time WNBA All-Star, spent the past eight years as an assistant under Gregg Popovich with the San Antonio Spurs. She guided the franchise's Summer League team to a championship in 2015.

The 44-year-old Colorado State product interviewed for high-profile NBA roles, including general manager and head coach, on multiple occasions but was never selected.

She explained after accepting the Aces' offer it was an opportunity to prove herself away from the Spurs, who are one of sports' model organizations.

"I sat in a lot of [NBA] head-coaching interviews. Two things that people always said, 'You've only been in San Antonio, and you've never been a head coach,'" Hammon told reporters in early January.

She added: "I feel like I'm ready to have my own team. And this is the organization that made it very, very obvious they wanted me really, really bad. And so it's always good to be wanted."

Her record-breaking salary shows how much the Aces wanted her to lead the staff.

Las Vegas has emerged as a perennial WNBA championship contender with a 63-25 combined record over the past three seasons, but the pursuit of the franchise's first title is ongoing. It lost in the WNBA Finals in 2020 to the Seattle Storm and lost in the conference finals the other two seasons.

Bill Laimbeer stepped down after the 2021 campaign to open the door for Hammon, who's tasked with getting the roster, led by A'ja Wilson, Kelsey Plum and Liz Cambage, over the top.

The Aces are scheduled to open the 2022 season May 6 when they visit the Phoenix Mercury, who reached the WNBA Finals last year before falling short against the Chicago Sky.