WNBA's popularity surge helps league land breakthrough TV contract

It’s the midpoint of a WNBA season that’s been like no other with record-setting numbers on the court, in the stands and on television. Now a big television deal may signal a new era for the league. John Yang discussed more with Sabreena Merchant of The Athletic.

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Amna Nawaz: We’re at the midpoint of a WNBA season that’s been like no other, record-setting numbers on the court, in the stands and on television and now, as John Yang reports, a big new television deal that may signal a new era for the league.

John Yang: The WNBA has been around since 1996, but it seems that a lot of people may be paying attention to it for the first time.

Attendance is the highest it’s been since the 1990s and viewership is up 183 percent from last season. The play is on pause right now for this weekend’s All-Star Game in Phoenix and for Olympic competition starting later this month in France.

Sabreena Merchant is a woman’s basketball writer for The Athletic. She is in Phoenix for the All-Star Game.

Sabreena, what accounts for this surge in popularity?

Sabreena Merchant, The Athletic: I think there’s a variety of factors, but you really have to drill it down to this year’s rookie class, specifically Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese and the dramatic fan followings they brought in from college basketball.

They had two of the most highly viewed college games of all time in the 2023 national championship game between Iowa and LSU and then once again in the Elite Eight in 2024. And the rivalry between those two and the momentum that it created for college basketball has just taken its step into the WNBA.

So I think the seeds for growth in the WNBA have obviously been planted ahead of time, but I would say that Clark and Reese have been the accelerant that’s created this dramatic rise this year.

John Yang: And Clark and Reese have been compared to two other players who’ve shared a rookie year, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. Is that an apt comparison?

Sabreena Merchant: I think so. I think we’re definitely seeing the WNBA at an inflection point similar to where the NBA was in the 1980s.

You think about the NBA prior to Magic and Bird and the finals were still being aired on tape delay. And the WNBA obviously hasn’t been that in recent seasons, but we are talking about a league that had finals games where fewer than a million people were watching.

And now, every time that there’s a game on national television, upwards of seven figures are watching. So there definitely has been a similar boon compared to Magic and Larry back in the 1980s. I also think that you check a couple boxes in terms of the college rivalry that Caitlin and Angel had and also the cross-racial comparisons with Caitlin and Angel similar to Magic and Bird.

So there are a lot of similar elements. And if the WNBA experience is anything close to that cresting in popularity like the NBA did, it’ll be well worth it.

John Yang: You mentioned television. Your — The Athletic is reporting that the new television deal is going to bring the WNBA in the first year about $200 million, which is about four times what they’re getting now for television.

What does that mean for the league, for the individual teams and for the players’ salaries?

Sabreena Merchant: Yes, I mean, it’s $200 million with the existing rights partners, and the WNBA already has deals with CBS and ION that they can add on to that deal that is currently with NBC, ESPN and Amazon.

So it’s possible that even in year one of this new deal, it could be close to 6X of what it currently is. So just suffice to say that’s a lot more money that’s coming into the WNBA. And I think that’s going to significantly impact the collective bargaining agreement, the negotiations that are set to take place for this new CBA.

The WNBA Players Association can opt out of this current CBA at the end of this season and write a new one for the start of the 2026 season. And this will be the first time where either the owners or the players are really operating from a position of strength. And now you can point to all of this revenue that’s coming into the league and really make dramatic improvements to player experience.

We’re talking about improvements to their travel amenities, the hotel rooms that they receive on the road, maternity and parental planning benefits that could be added into the CBA. Obviously, individual player salaries are a big portion of it.

You think about the maximum player salary in the WNBA right now is about $250,000, and the lowest player salary in the NBA is about $500,000. So to get just a seven-figure contract in the WNBA might be something that we see on the horizon with this influx of TV money.

For the WNBA players to get a more equitable revenue split, now that we have this $2.2 billion coming in over the course of 11 years, it actually gives the players a leg to stand on in terms of getting more of that revenue for their salaries.

John Yang: What’s it going to take to keep this growth going on the same — or can it grow on the same trajectory, or is it just so steep right now it’s going to level off eventually? And what’s it going to take to keep building on this popularity?

Sabreena Merchant: I think it’s the kind of thing where it’s like a positive feedback loop, where people start watching the league.

They obviously have the entry points of Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, but you tune in for those two, and you become familiar with Breanna Stewart A’ja Wilson or any of the other great stars that exist in WNBA this year. And that will just perpetuate itself.

I think this is obviously the steepest we’re going to see it, but I don’t think that we’re necessarily going to see a level-off. The more that the WNBA gets on TV in nationally televised windows and prime-time opportunities, that’s going to bring in more and more fans right now.

Like, it’s kind of a distressed asset in terms of where you see the WNBA on TV. It’s, like, really hard to find games. And assuming this new TV rights deal puts them on prime position in ESPN and NBC and ideally more nationally available networks that aren’t just, like, hidden on cable or streamers, I think that will continue the growth.

The quality of play increasing, I think is going to help with the growth. And everything that we’re seeing in college basketball, all that interest and popularity in college basketball is just going to continue to make its way into the WNBA.

John Yang: Sabreena Merchant of The Athletic, thank you very much.

Sabreena Merchant: Thank you.

Geoff Bennett: And our thanks to you, John.