From a commercial perspective, the WNBA has enjoyed its most successful campaign in league history, thanks in part to the arrival of star rookies Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese .
League commissioner Cathy Engelbert is helping the WNBA transition said popularity into expanded revenue. The league recently negotiated a new $2.2 billion ($200 million per year) media rights deal with Disney, Amazon, and NBC.
During a press conference on Thursday evening, the commissioner also announced three scheduling changes that will go into effect as soon as 2025.
CHANGE ONE : The WNBA will expand its regular season from 40 to a league-record 44 games in 2025. Engelbert explained how 2025 was the perfect time to try such expansion, as the league will not have to juggle an Olympic or FIBA World Cup break in the summer.
Regular season viewership numbers were up dramatically in 2024. According to Richard Deitsch of the Athletic , nationally televised games averaged $1.2 million viewers -- up from 440,00 in 2023.
CHANGE TWO : The WNBA Finals will shift from a best-of-five format to a best-of-seven, in line with other professional American sports – and Game 1 of this year's championship series showed why the move had been long overdue .
The Minnesota Lynx claimed the first game of the 2024 finals with a come-from-behind victory over the New York Liberty on Thursday. Star forward Napheesa Collier nailed a go-ahead step-back jumper with under 10 seconds in overtime to secure the 95-93 victory.
Collier (21 points) was one of three Lynx players to top 20 points alongside Courtney Williams (23) and Kayla McBride (22). The Liberty will host the second game at the Barclays Center on Sunday.
CHANGE THREE: The first round of the WNBA Playoffs will shift to a 1-1-1 format. In recent years, the higher seed has hosted all three games. The league's pivot to chartered flights from commercial flying will make such a change feasible.
Clark and the sixth-seeded Indiana Fever were ousted by the Connecticut Sun in consecutive road defeats. Game 2 became the most-watched WNBA playoff game since 1999, drawing 2.5 million viewers.
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The WNBA Conference Finals -- featuring the Liberty, Lynx, Sun, and the Las Vegas Aces -- averaged 850,000 viewers per game.
Engelbert struck an optimistic tone during her press conference. " It's a constant balancing of the schedule," she said.
“The league’s growth and increased demand for WNBA basketball made this the ideal time to expand the schedule, lengthen the Finals, and provide fans more opportunities to see the best players in the world compete at the highest level,”
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