It's been over a month since the 2024 WNBA season tipped off, and the stories about this league's growth are not overblown.
In May, the women's basketball league saw its highest attendance for a month. It's also already had multiple games with over a million average viewers, a feat it had yet to achieve in over two decades.
The 2024 rookies class, led by Caitlin Clark, deserves credit for the WNBA's massive growth, even though there were plenty of signs that the league was trending up as it had doubled its revenue over the last five years.
However, despite the uptick in viewership and revenue in recent years, The Washington Post reported last week that the WNBA has still lost at least $10 million per year since it was founded in 1996.
Moreover, the league is expected to lose $50 million just this season, even with increased attention and viewership.
But some reprieve could be coming soon for the league and could drastically improve its future.
The WNBA is set to quadruple its next media rights deal
Securing a media rights contract is one of the biggest revenue drivers for all sports leagues.
For example, the NBA, which has a massive equity stake in the WNBA, earns about $2.7 billion annually from its current media deal. The NBA earned over $10 billion in revenue last season, meaning the media rights deal was worth over a fourth of the league's revenue.
For other leagues, the chunk of revenue from media rights could be significantly more than a quarter.
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The WNBA only makes around $60 million annually on its current media rights deal with ESPN, Scripps, and Amazon. But according to Front Office Sports, the WNBA could see its next deal quadruple to around $240 million per year.
That number would be huge for the league as that alone would be more than the $200 million in revenue the WNBA generated during its 2023 season.
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The league is also expected to see an influx of money from its expansion teams. Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob paid a $50 million expansion fee to add the Golden State Valkyries to the WNBA in 2025. Toronto is also adding a team in 2026.
The influx of cash should be a jolt for the WNBA, and could allow for re-negotiation of the notoriously low contracts of its players.
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But there is one issue.
The expectation is that the WNBA will still be looped into the media rights deal of the NBA, which the men's professional league is currently negotiating. That deal is expected to be worth $76 billion over 11 years, or nearly $7 billion annually.
That final number would nearly triple the NBA's annual revenue just from media rights. The WNBA's portion from that is determined by the NBA and not the WNBA, according to the Washington Post.
If the WNBA does get valued at $240 million, it would be a huge leap for the league and would outpace the growth of the NBA. However, by looping in with the NBA until the middle of the 2030s could stifle the growth of the burgeoning women's league.
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