WNBA outlook looks promising after record-setting year though the league has a few challenges ahead

 

[October 24, 2024]  By DOUG FEINBERG

NEW YORK (AP) — The WNBA looks promising heading into the offseason after a banner year with record ratings, attendance and a first-time champion in New York.

Soon after the confetti stopped falling on the sellout crowd at Barclays Center following Game 5 of the WNBA Finals, the league and its players turned their attention to 2025.

Less than 24 hours after Sunday night's game and days before the Liberty's championship parade on Thursday, the players' union opted out of the current collective bargaining agreement. The decision was expected with a new 11-year media rights deal worth approximately $200 million per year beginning in 2026. The players are looking for a bigger share of the revenue pie among other things, including pensions and higher salaries.

The current CBA will still be in effect throughout next season, but both sides would like to get a deal done sooner rather than later.

Negotiations are always intense, but everyone associated with the WNBA has much to be excited about.

The league is expanding and will increase the number of regular season games to 44. The WNBA will hold an expansion draft for Golden State in December. The Valkyries will be the league's 13th franchise. The league will add franchises in Toronto and Portland in 2026 with at least one other team starting in either 2027 or 2028.

Though the WNBA could lose one of its iconic stars if Diana Taurasi announces her retirement, league officials are looking forward to another highly anticipated draft. The draft lottery is next month and will determine who will get the first pick and potentially Paige Bueckers, who 21 years after Taurasi could become the next UConn guard to be selected No. 1.

Many of the league's top players will remain in the U.S. this winter and play in Unrivaled — the 3-on-3 league started by WNBA Finals standouts Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier — in January.

The Stewart and Collier championship showdown led to strong ratings with all five games having more than a million TV viewers. The decisive Game 5 drew an average of 2.2 million viewers, peaking at 3.3 million which made it the most watched WNBA game in 25 years.

The league as a whole had its most-watched regular season in 24 years and best attendance in 22 seasons. During the regular season 22 game telecasts topped at least a million viewers on a host of networks.

New York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu (20) reacts after scoring against the Minnesota Lynx during the third quarter of Game 5 of the WNBA basketball final series, Sunday, Oct. 20, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Pamela Smith)

The league's rookie class led by Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese was a big part of that success — and all should come back stronger and better next year.

“When Caitlin Clark announced she was going to enter the draft, I remember ... the wave of enthusiasm that came from a player that wasn’t even going to play for the Lynx,” Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeve said. “So there was a lot of excitement and momentum for the WNBA. But to see it actually translate business-wise across the league, whatever the reasons were. There’s one really big reason and a lot of other little reasons why. And I think the movement that we’re in now is exciting.”

Not everything has been positive around the league's growth.

Nearly half of the WNBA franchises have fired coaches in the past month. Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles and Washington are all looking for new leaders on the sidelines. All of the coaches who were let go had three years or less with their teams.

Off the court, players say they were targets of increasing online racial and homophobic threats, including one to Stewart and her wife during the WNBA Finals.

Commissioner Cathy Engelbert addressed the rising number of attacks that players have dealt with on social media at her state of the league address before the start of the WNBA Finals. She said the league will work with the players’ union to figure out what they can do together to combat it.

The online abuse and the CBA are two of the offseason issues the WNBA and its players must address, but they have arguably the strongest foundation since the league's launch to build on.

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