Finally, we have real WNBA news to react to. I like talking about mascots and shoes and other women’s sports leagues as much as the next person, but after nearly six months of waiting, it feels great to have a new WNBA Collective Bargaining Agreement to discuss. Despite the league’s assertion that March 10 was the deadline to avoid delaying the season, it was reported Wednesday that training camp and the regular season would begin on time.

As we have been saying all offseason, agreeing to this CBA at the 11th hour leaves scant time for a jam-packed offseason featuring a two-team expansion draft, the largest free agent class in the history of the league and an impactful WNBA draft. While we will begin previewing all of those things next week, I wanted to take this opportunity to react to this new CBA, or at least the details that have been reported.

I’m not going to focus on who won or lost these negotiations. Even if I felt like I was qualified to have an opinion, I don’t think it is the best use of our time. I will say I would have liked to have seen the players get even more than they did, but barring a 50/50 revenue split, I was always going to have that opinion.

Really, though, this is a win for everybody because the WNBA avoided what would have been its first work stoppage in its 30-year history. I always thought that the league had too much momentum, and revenue, and goodwill to risk it all on actually missing games, and while it looked like the shortsighted owners might prove me wrong, we finally did get the result we were all looking for.

Another reason that the fans won is that the increased salary cap, and particularly raising the minimum salary to $300,000, should attract some of the best players in Europe and Australia who have sometimes skipped the WNBA season, either to rest during their domestic league’s offseason or to play for their country. Players like Awak Kuier, Isobel Borlase, Ajsa Sivka, Annika Soltau, and Juste Joycte should be even more likely to play in the WNBA. This comes on the heels of the Golden State Valkyries, who made the playoffs as an expansion team with 10 different international players on their roster for at least part of the season. Most of the best players in the world were already playing in the WNBA, but anything that will attract even more talent is a good thing.

The new supermax salary this season will be roughly 20 percent of the salary cap, up from roughly 16.7 percent last season under the previous CBA. I’m a little surprised it isn’t higher, and I wonder if it will lead to superteams being formed. Theoretically, there’s nothing to stop two top players like Napheesa Collier and A’ja Wilson from joining forces, while leaving more than enough room under the salary cap to fill the remaining roster spots. That wasn’t as much of an issue in previous years in part because teams had so many years of control before a players would hit unrestricted free agency, but that has changed in recent seasons. The good news is that last season’s contenders like Las Vegas, Minnesota and Phoenix should be able to bring most of their best players back, if they want to return.

Between the Women’s NCAA Tournament, the start of the NWSL season and the rapidly approaching start to the WNBA season, there has never been a better time to be a fan of women’s sports. The WNBA and the WNBPA finally reaching an agreement was just the latest win for fans of women’s sports.