Is the WNBA Reaching its Full Potential?

In recent years, the WNBA has seen immense growth in popularity in women’s sports. Viewership doubled from 2022 to 2024, with over 2.4 million fans in 2024 attending games. Despite the WNBA’s prominence as one of the leading women's sports associations in the U.S., its profit pales in comparison to men’s league sports, specifically the NBA, and it is reported to have lost over $10 million on average annually since its inaugural season in 1997. However, the WNBA and its teams have recently experienced a boost of growth through expansion, cultural relevance, and contracts that are helping the league build momentum into long-term financial sustainability—and with it, athletes.

The WNBA’s financial capabilities are partially restricted due to its smaller scope, with only 13 teams competing in the 2025 season: the Atlanta Dream, Chicago Sky, Connecticut Sun, New York Liberty, and Washington Mystics are in the Eastern Conference; the Dallas Wings, Las Vegas Aces, Minnesota Lynx, Seattle Storm, Los Angeles Sparks, and Golden State Valkyries are in the Western Conference. While a lower number of teams has benefits, like increasing selectivity in competing athletes and creating more suspense for games, this still causes financial lulls when compared to the profits brought in by the NBA’s whopping 30-team league. 

However, this number is set to expand to 15 in 2026 through the addition of teams in Toronto and Portland to the league. The expansion fees for these teams are quite large; for example, Portland’s team—the 15th franchise—will face a whopping $125 million expansion fee, which benefits the league by bringing in additional capital for funding and salaries for the existing teams. Expansion fees paid to the WNBA’s existing owners boost the league’s overall value; lead to contributions in improvements throughout the league concerning factors like media rights; and create opportunities for widening the talent pool as expansion drafts may occur. Additionally, expanding the league increases the number of games; broadens the scope of the league and brings in more traction; creates more spots for talented athletes; and funds teams to stimulate their growth as well as the growth of the league as a whole. These factors make the WNBA appealing to investors, which will ultimately boost the WNBA’s financial growth to keep up with its status as a prominent part of women’s professional sports. 

Another drain of profit from the WNBA is due to the importance of raising the average income for female players in the league. The WNBA’s objective has been to harness domestic opportunities for professional basketball players and alleviate their need to play in foreign leagues during the off-season, but their salaries fail to adequately reflect this goal. The WNBA’s revenue sharing—the division of revenue between ownership and athletes—is 50 percent of the competition’s incremental revenue, which reportedly is a fraction of the NBA’s even split of the total income the league generates with ownership, but player salaries are set to increase in the next few years. With the 2024 season’s attendance the highest the WNBA has had in 26 years, television networks including Disney, Amazon, and NBC have quickly snapped up the enticing opportunity for promotion, intrigued by their record popularity. The resulting $2.2 billion rights agreement with these companies will aid the athletes’ salaries while simultaneously increasing the league’s capital.

As a result of the low player salary, players rely heavily on endorsements for their income. For example, in 2024, Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark earned a total of $11.1 million, with an estimated $11 million coming from endorsement earnings such as Nike. Clark’s salary was only about one percent of her total earnings that year at around $100,000, whereas the average NBA salary for the 2024-25 season was $11 million. In addition to the importance of companies supporting the WNBA and its athletes, celebrities such as LeBron James and Simone Biles also use their influence to promote the league. This publicity carries fans from other sports to support women’s basketball, making the quickly-advancing league more attractive to investors; women’s basketball becomes a cultural phenomenon. If companies and celebrities recognize the dedication of these athletes to the game, how come WNBA salaries don’t reflect this?

Although there is a large gap in general capital coming into the WNBA and the NBA, this is primarily due to the novelty of women’s professional basketball compared to how long the NBA has been around, since it was founded 50 years ago. Given contracts for increased visibility, heightened public interest, and plans for expansion, this gap is set to narrow. An example of this public interest is due to the efforts of the reigning WNBA champion New York Liberty to garner popularity from fan engagement. Viral mascot Ellie the Elephant and brand partnerships resulted in 70 percent growth in partnership revenue for the team in 2024. This is just one example of how the WNBA’s teams are dedicated to furthering the achievements of women’s basketball, working diligently to find unique ways to draw in new fans to keep the league relevant. 

While the decisions concerning athletes’ salaries should be revisited, the WNBA and its teams are moving in the right direction, since their financial capabilities and viewership are broadening exponentially. Women’s basketball’s focus on the fundamentals, higher stakes due to shorter seasons, and high selectivity in drafting its athletes makes it widely attractive to basketball fanatics; this secures its prominence within sports culture, which will lead to more appreciation and recognition for these athletes.