The 2025 WNBA playoffs have seen arenas packed with fans and “most of them are male,” with fandom among boys “quickly growing,” according to Heather Knight of the N.Y. TIMES. According to statistics provided by the league, the WNBA’s fanbase this season was 57% male and 43% female. Men have “actually made up more than half of viewership for years, but they were mostly middle-aged before.” Now males are “skewing younger.” The number of boys under 18 who watch WNBA games has “grown by 130 percent over the past four years.” The league also noted that Fever G Caitlin Clark’s debut “coincided with a 34 percent increase in boys watching the games.” The Valkyries sold out all 22 regular-season home games at Chase Center this season. Knight cited several male fans as saying that “Warriors games had started to feel like overpriced networking opportunities,” while the Valkyries games were “more affordable and more fun” (N.Y. TIMES, 9/21).
SHOWING UP: In D.C., Candace Buckner wrote the WNBA is a “league worth fighting for, with momentum that shouldn’t be quelled.” This was “evident” last week when “more than 16,000 fans” attended Gainbridge Fieldhouse for the Fever’s playoff game against the Dream. Buckner: “In an WNBA city where half-witted trolls and agenda-pushing observers would want us to believe the fanfare has died down (hint: It hasn’t), the league remains a draw. But that’s only if the doors remain open. So a word for the players who want more money and the owners who want to protect their pockets: Don’t screw this up” (WASHINGTON POST, 9/19).
THE RIGHT TIMING: In S.F., Scott Ostler wrote league officials “have to be asking the Golden State Valkyries, ‘Where have you been all our lives?’” The WNBA “has to be patting itself on the back for its brilliant timing” with the expansion team’s debut. Ostler: “The Valkyries’ crazy success, artistically and financially, is a tide that is lifting the other 12 boats. And the Valkyries lifted owner Joe Lacob’s boat.” He paid a $50M “cover charge to join the party.” Next year’s expansion teams, Portland and Toronto, “will pay” $250M each (S.F. CHRONICLE, 9/21).
MARKING ITS SPOT: In Minneapolis, Patrick Reusse noted the WNBA has “made the leap from being an opportunity for the NBA to show goodwill to all basketball athletes and take up summer arena dates to an attraction worthy of a major place on the sports calendar.” The “reason” is that there are “many more excellent players in the league than there were when our Lynx started winning titles 14 years ago” (MINNESOTA STAR TRIBUNE, 9/21).
