More than a decade ago in our Charlotte office, our editorial staff met with officials from the NBA, and over the course of our conversation, they argued that the WNBA should be getting more coverage in our publications. A healthy debate ensued, as some from SBJ’s newsroom countered the coverage fit the W’s standing in the U.S. sports landscape at the time.
It’s a conversation that has been revisited many times with the league, and I thought of those discussions in looking at the amount of coverage the league received over its opening weekend earlier this month. On Sunday, May 10, we pored through hundreds of clips in the SBJ office and reviewed the weekend news from the NBA and NHL playoffs to MLB and MLS regular seasons to developments in college sports, golf and team sales. But it was the volume and tone of the coverage around the WNBA that stood out, and in that Sunday’s Weekend Rap, the first four stories were all glowing, positive takes on the league, its players and fan following.
Seeking some context, I decided to look back at the league’s opening week during select years of the last decade, and doing so, you can see the tremendous gains the W has made in media attention and its place in pop culture. Let’s start with May 2016, when the main piece in SBJ Daily noted the WNBA was starting its 20th season with new President Lisa Borders focused on increasing attendance, growing revenue and increasing “visibility for the league.” USA Today said the league was looking to improve “stagnating attendance and television ratings.” Former WNBA President Val Ackerman told Newsday that despite a leveling of interest, the quality of play had improved dramatically, stating, “The quality of play in the WNBA is really at a zenith. … There’s a great game happening.”
The opening week two years later saw more questions, as in May 2018, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver hinted at possibly shifting the schedule of the WNBA from May-to-August to the fall/winter because it was hard to draw fans in the summer. He was “particularly frustrated that we have been unable to get young women, girls to attend those games.” He added, “We still have a marketing problem and we have to figure out … how to do a better job connecting to young people and get them interested in women’s basketball.”
A year later, SBJ Daily wrote the W opened its season with its first commissioner, as Cathy Engelbert took over a league that had a new logo and a marketing approach aimed at a younger audience, but the biggest challenges was still attendance. It was after COVID when we saw a change, and in May 2023, there was a noticeable shift in tone, as the Washington Post noted “positive trends” in the W, which looked to “build off a women’s NCAA tournament that had the most viewers on ESPN.”
But it was May 2024, opening its 28th season with the addition of Caitlin Clark, that interest surged. The AP reported the WNBA was getting “unparalleled attention,” with the challenge of “translating the hype and hoopla into a movement and not just moment.”
Now, two years later, the storylines are even more positive — just look at the headlines over this month’s opening weekend: First, the Portland Fire set a W record for an expansion team’s season opener with more than 19,300 at Moda Center. The expansion Toronto Tempo opened to a standing-room-only crowd in an event called “historic … both on and off the court.” A third story noted more than 17,000 watched two of the league’s most popular teams, the Dallas Wings and Indiana Fever, open their season in Gainbridge Fieldhouse, which was “filled with fans and storylines.”
For more context, in 2016, SBJ featured 12 stories in the first three weeks of the W’s season; in 2024, we had 40 over the first two weeks, and in 2026, we have had close to 40 just in the first seven days of the season. So, what’s my point? First, the increased coverage comes as media companies have significantly pared back on staff and beat writers — so many sports have to fight for inches and attention and now the W is receiving more resources. Two, the placement of the news, not buried in agate sections, but across print, digital, television and audio — from sports, business and style sections. Three, and perhaps most striking, look at the tenor, and how it’s shifted so dramatically from hand-wringing, dour takes on empty seats, lagging viewership, marketing challenges and failure to connect with young fans. Now, coverage of the league, its players, the product and the atmosphere is almost breathless.
There are plenty of reasons for this significant progress: A lot of work by players, the league, teams, partners and fans, and skilled use of social platforms. Everyone connected to the league will tell you there is still a long way to go, but to this observer, it’s beneficial to step back and take in how the coverage, storylines, perception and appreciation of the WNBA has dramatically improved.
Abraham Madkour can be reached at amadkour@sportsbusinessjournal.com.
