We Love Women's Ball

The 2025 WNBA season was one of the most highly anticipated seasons in recent history. It came after a hugely successful 2024 season, where the WNBA’s popularity had seen a significant rise. The emergence of the 2024 rookie class, headlined by Iowa standout guard Caitlin Clark and LSU forward Angel Reese, had been just what the league needed. The two players had been locked in a heated race for rookie of the year during the 2024 season, with Clark emerging as the winner after she separated herself down the stretch of the season. The rivalry had peaked when the two players and their teams met on June 16, 2024, with the viewership for that game being the highest experienced by the WNBA in 23 years. Now, for the 2025 season, the league had done what any sensible organization would do: Pit these two money-makers against each other on opening weekend, during the 3.00pm ET window on a Sunday. If the league’s hope was to break that previous viewership record, then this was a huge success. Th...

On June 24, 2024, the WNBA formally announced that it had reached a new media rights deal with Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon. This deal had been negotiated as part of the larger NBA deal, which split media rights between the three companies. The numbers were astronomical compared to any influx of revenue the WNBA had ever received to that point. The deal was worth $2.2b, paid over 11 years, making it worth $200m a year through 2036. This could rise to $300m annually, with the WNBA planning to add more partners. This was great news to fans, as now 125 games would be on national television. It was even better news for the players, because for the first time in the league’s history, the league had reached a level of self-sustainability and profitability. Let's rewind here a little bit. Six years before this deal was signed, things were a little different in the WNBA. Only eight of the twelve teams were turning a profit, and the NBA was subsidizing the league's losses every year....