ELLEVEST INSIGHTS

After years of steady growth, the WNBA is poised for a historic year of success in 2024. What was perhaps the best-kept secret in sports is finally entering the mainstream, with hoards of new fans getting to know all 12 teams for the first time. And for many, their journeys to fandom mirror some of their favorite players, discovering the league with fresh eyes as college stars turned high-profile draft picks get their own first glimpses of the pros.

Some of these stars are now household names. There’s Caitlin Clark, lethal from behind the arc during her time at Iowa and now a highly touted prospect at the Indiana Fever. There’s 2023 NCAA champion ‌LSU Angel Reese, whose dominance at the rim has only just begun to flourish in Chicago. In Los Angeles, rising college standouts Cameron Brink and Rickea Jackson are bringing new life to a storied franchise. And they’re all going head to head with established superstars like Aces forward A’ja Wilson, Liberty MVP Breanna Stewart, and Sun facilitator Alyssa Thomas.

With obvious storytelling elements at play before the 2024 season even tipped off, interest in the league has already reached new heights, supported by a trail of escalating ratings dating to the moment the Fever made the first pick in the 2024 Draft. The WNBA Draft itself garnered 2.45 million viewers on ESPN — on a Monday in mid-April, no less — shattering draft night records and becoming the most-watched WNBA event to ever air on ESPN platforms. It was the most-watched WNBA event on any platform in almost 24 years.

And that was all before a single basketball hit the court. In May, Clark’s first official game with the Indiana Fever drew 2.1 million viewers to ESPN2, despite being scheduled against both NHL and NBA playoff games (including one featuring the Indiana Pacers). The Fever’s season opener outdrew that night’s Stanley Cup Playoffs game on ESPN, which snagged just 1.99 million viewers during the same time slot.

But the excitement hasn’t just been orbiting Clark and the Fever. The Chicago Sky’s first preseason game showcasing storied rookies Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso had hundreds of thousands of viewers tuning into a fan’s cell phone livestream when an official broadcast couldn’t be secured on WNBA League Pass. In Las Vegas, the reigning champion Aces have sold out a league-record 15 of their 20 home games — as well as all their season ticket packages.

2023 WNBA finalists the New York Liberty have also completely sold out of their season ticket allotment, as have the Atlanta Dream and the Dallas Wings. Both the Aces and the Connecticut Sun registered sellouts for their opening night games on May 14, 2024, with scant tickets available across other markets in the first week of regular season play.

So what’s next? To build on or even maintain these numbers, the league has to grow its internal infrastructure alongside its fanbase. Travel conditions, player salaries, and media relations have long been contentious issues within the league, buttressed by some growing pains coming out of the most recent Collective Bargaining Agreement, ratified in 2020.

In response, WNBA Commissioner Cathy Englebert abruptly announced a plan to provide full-time, league-funded charter flights for all teams. The rollout, however, has been bumpy: Only Indiana and Minnesota were able to secure private flights in the program’s first week. And as proven by those fan-filmed livestream numbers, preseason streams have also been a struggle, as the league‌ underestimated their exponentially expanded audience’s overwhelming demand to see this year’s Final Four frontrunners taking the court in their professional jerseys for the first time.

Despite these hiccups, the league will soon have plenty of new revenue to re-invest in the player and fan experience. The league is also‌ expanding, first to the Bay Area in 2025 and then to Toronto in 2026. Golden State WNBA paid a reported expansion fee of $50 million to become the 13th team in the WNBA, with Toronto likely putting together a similar down payment. The league appears to be leaning hard into growing its playing field, ballooning to an expected total of 16 teams by 2028 — up from today’s 12.

Another huge cash infusion will come by way of a renegotiated TV rights deal in late 2025. The league now earns around $60 million per year from their broadcast contract, which includes partners like ESPN, Ion, CBS, and Amazon Prime. The league is even considering breaking ties with the NBA in their relationship with ABC/ESPN, should they believe the market to be undervaluing the WNBA as its own property. Because if ratings for Clark and company’s first season continue down their current path, the WNBA will be in a good position to raise those earnings by multiple orders of magnitude.

For their part, players are already considering reopening their CBA’s previously negotiated salary scale, as they envision higher revenues directly leading to higher salaries for stars and role players alike.

But by the time that new CBA is ultimately ratified, 2024 will hopefully be remembered as a pivotal year for both growth and stability within the WNBA. There might be some growing pains along the way, but women’s sports are in a transformational moment that can’t be denied any longer. And granted they play their cards right, professional leagues like the WNBA are in the ideal position to reap the benefits.

About Just Women’s Sports’ Claire Watkins:

Claire Watkins is a staff writer at Just Women’s Sports, host of The Late Sub podcast, and voice behind the Just Women’s Sports daily newsletter.

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