In women’s professional sports, there is a tendency to measure success by comparing a league to its counterpart in men’s sports. In the case of the Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), financially, there is currently no comparison, with the
totaling approximately 200 million U.S. dollars in 2023. The
on the other hand reached over 10 billion U.S. dollars in the 2022/23 season. Such comparisons, however, often detract from the wider context of women’s professional sports and the growth the WNBA has undergone in recent years, with professional basketball ranking as one of the
in 2023. Furthermore, despite the WNBA’s revenue being dwarfed by that of the NBA, there has been astonishing economic growth in recent years, with the league’s revenue in 2023 representing an increase of over 200 percent from the previous year. A large part of this has been the increased exposure of the league through the media, with the
more than doubling between 2019 and 2023, reaching over half a million viewers.
Who are the top teams in the WNBA?
Since the league was established in 1997, the franchises with the
most WNBA Championship wins have been the Minnesota Lynx, the Seattle Storm, and the Houston Comets, with four titles apiece. However, no sporting dynasty lasts forever, with the Comets being disbanded in 2008, eight years after completing a four-peat. Meanwhile, the last time the Lynx or Storm won a Finals was in 2020, when the Seattle Storm emerged victorious over the Las Vegas Aces, the latter of which won back-to-back Championships in 2022 and 2023. Riding this crest of success, the Aces was the team with the
highest average regular season attendance in 2023, drawing crowds of close to 10 thousand spectators each game. Meanwhile, the
most prolific points scorer in WNBA history, Diana Taurasi, who is often considered the greatest women’s basketball player of all time, had three Championship rings as of 2023, winning all of them with the Phoenix Mercury.
The Caitlin Clark effect: what is the future of the WNBA?
Since breaking the
all-time scoring record in NCAA college basketball, Caitlin Clark has taken the sport by storm. Tellingly, nearly 2.5 million
viewers tuned into the 2024 WNBA Draft in the U.S. to watch the Indiana Fever select No. 1 overall pick Clark, which was nearly five times higher than the previous year's viewership. With her entry into the WNBA, however, a great deal of attention has been brought to the
gender pay gap in professional basketball, with the
average annual salary in the NBA of around 10.8 million U.S. dollars being nearly 100 times higher than in the WNBA. According to the
WNBA’s rookie pay scale, Clark’s own base salary in her first year in the league was set at approximately 77 thousand U.S. dollars. While the league that generates more revenue will naturally offer higher salaries, the pressing issue is the
share of revenue spent on player wages in the WNBA, which was estimated to only be 10 percent in 2024, compared to around 50 percent in the NBA. While Clark will earn much more through sponsorships, the exposure she brings to the WNBA can grow the league and shift this balance of power, with players getting a larger share of a bigger pie.
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