How the WNBA Proved Me and Everyone Else Wrong

· Yahoo Sports

In the summer of 1997, I was a young sports reporter in Salt Lake City and got an assignment that, at the time, didn’t exactly feel like covering the Super Bowl. I was a sideline reporter for the Utah Starzz during the inaugural season of the WNBA. Yes, Starzz. With two Z’s. It was Utah in the ’90s. Apparently, everything needed to rhyme with Jazz.

I remember standing in the arena during that first season. Looking around some nights at what felt like a few hundred people scattered throughout a building designed for thousands more. The official numbers were better than my memory makes them seem. Utah averaged 7,611 fans that first season, but the Starzz still ranked dead last in attendance in an eight-team league.

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I remember thinking something that, almost 30 years later, I can safely admit. This thing isn’t going to make it.

Great call, John. Thankfully, social media didn’t exist yet to preserve that take for eternity.

30 Years To Success

The WNBA began in 1997 with eight teams and a 28-game schedule. I respected the players and the basketball, but I certainly didn’t see what was coming. I’m pretty sure nobody standing next to me in Salt Lake City was whispering, “Just wait 30 years until these franchises are worth hundreds of millions of dollars and Amazon is fighting for streaming rights.”

Yet here we are.

I work in the Bay Area, where the Golden State Valkyries are only in their second season and have already been valued at $1 billion. The first women’s sports franchise to reach that mark. The average WNBA franchise is now valued at roughly $460 million. That’s an incredible business story. But the sports media story may be even better, because networks don’t pay for good intentions.

They pay for eyeballs.

Go back to 2023, the season before Caitlin Clark entered the league. WNBA games on ESPN platforms averaged roughly 440,000 viewers. Then Clark arrived. In 2024, ESPN’s regular-season WNBA audience jumped 170%, averaging nearly 1.2 million viewers. The WNBA Draft averaged 2.4 million, up 328% from the previous year,. The All-Star Game drew 3.4 million, the largest audience in the event’s history. ESPN’s social engagement around WNBA content increased 413%. Video views exploded 642%.

Those aren’t participation trophies. Those are media numbers.

Caitlin Clark

It would have been easy to dismiss 2024 as simply the Caitlin Clark phenomenon, and let’s be clear: Clark changed the business. Pretending otherwise is like saying Tiger Woods didn’t change golf television ratings. She brought millions of people through the front door who weren’t watching before. The bigger question was whether they would stay.

Then 2025 happened. Instead of retreating from that enormous 2024 jump, ESPN’s WNBA regular-season audience increased another 6%, to 1.3 million viewers. Its postseason averaged 1.2 million. The most-watched WNBA postseason on ESPN platforms ever, while the Finals averaged 1.5 million. Even WNBA Countdown increased its postseason audience by 30%. That’s when a moment starts looking more like a market.

Television executives apparently agree.

The WNBA’s new national media-rights agreements kicked in this season and run through 2036. The primary package with Disney, NBCUniversal and Amazon has been reported at roughly $200 million per year. That’s about four times what the league had been receiving.

This season, the WNBA has a record 216 nationally distributed games and events across a collection of broadcast, cable and streaming platforms. Think about that compared with the league I covered in 1997.

Back then, the question was whether anybody would watch. Now the problem may be figuring out which remote to use.

Maybe that’s the biggest change of all. Women’s basketball doesn’t have to constantly make the argument anymore that it deserves media coverage. ESPN isn’t putting games on ABC because somebody in Bristol wants a pat on the back. Amazon isn’t buying rights because Jeff Bezos suddenly became sentimental about pick-and-roll defense. They believe people will watch. Sports media follows eyeballs. Always has. Sometimes we’re just slow figuring out where those eyeballs are going.

What fascinates me most is how wrong my younger self was about where this could go.

Believe In ‘The W’

In 1997, I saw a fledgling league trying to establish itself in an already crowded American sports landscape. I saw empty seats, a product searching for an audience, and something that looked vulnerable. Nearly 30 years later, WNBA franchises are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. National television audiences have more than doubled in just a few years. In addition, some of the biggest media companies in the world have committed to showing the league through 2036.

Maybe the lesson isn’t only about the WNBA.

Maybe it’s about sports media and our tendency to decide far too quickly what people will and won’t care about.

We love declaring things dead. Baseball is dead. Radio is dead. Linear television is dead. Nobody will watch women’s basketball. Young people don’t watch sports. Then the audience has this annoying habit of making its own decisions.

I had mine made in Salt Lake City in 1997: This league doesn’t have a future. Thirty years later, WNBA teams are worth hundreds of millions, television networks are fighting for the games, and the Golden State Valkyries are worth a billion dollars.

Good thing nobody asked the sideline reporter.

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John Lund

With decades of experience behind the mic, John Lund is more than a sports commentator and weekly columnist for Barrett Media—he’s a storyteller, humorist, and true fan. He’s hosted shows in mid sized markets like Pittsburgh and Salt Lake City to larger cities like San Francisco, Detroit and Dallas. John has even hosted nationally on ESPN Radio. Known for his sharp wit and deep sports knowledge, John welcomes your feedback. Reach him on X @JohnLundRadio or by email at [email protected].

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