The celebs seemingly have aligned for the WNBA with Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese becoming a member of the ranks of A’ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart, Diana Taurasi and others.
The league is getting unparalleled consideration. Now the problem for the WNBA after opening its twenty eighth season Tuesday evening is translating the hype and hoopla right into a motion and never only a second in its historical past.
It’s a puzzle with numerous items: advertising and marketing methods, fan engagement, company sponsors and TV offers constructed round intriguing basketball storylines and outsized personalities.
Minnesota coach Cheryl Reeve mentioned everybody concerned must be extra modern in how gamers and video games are marketed and promoted to reap the benefits of the potential tsunami for each the league and girls’s sports activities.
“In case you are enterprise as normal, when you suppose that the established order goes to work, you’re going to overlook out on alternatives to capitalize from a enterprise standpoint,” Reeve mentioned.
Taurasi agrees.
“The one factor we’ve all the time finished as gamers is introduced that aggressive spirit and combat,” mentioned the 19-year Phoenix guard who has seen loads of moments the place the WNBA had momentum slip by means of the cracks. “And now it’s their job to hold it.”
Taurasi mentioned it feels completely different this time with all the eye accompanying the rookie class.
However Len Elmore, a 10-year NBA veteran who spent 31 years as a TV broadcaster, mentioned the rookies must do extra than simply present up.
“It’s not going to assist if Caitlin Clark or Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso don’t make the playoffs,” mentioned Elmore, now a senior lecturer in sports activities administration at Columbia College.
Clark debuted Tuesday evening, lacking her first 4 pictures earlier than ending with 20 factors. She additionally turned it over 10 instances in a 92-71 street loss earlier than a sellout crowd in Connecticut.
The NBA took off within the Nineteen Eighties following the arrival of Magic Johnson and Larry Chook a few years forward of a brand new TV deal took that league’s playoff video games from being tape-delayed broadcasts to reside prime-time telecasts. Each Chook and Magic went on to win a number of championships.
The WNBA’s joint take care of the NBA with ESPN is up after 2025. Scores for ladies’s basketball simply continue to grow. Followers are so keen that they regarded for — and watched — a livestream of Reese’s exhibition debut on social media.
One other key for the WNBA to emulate the success of the NBA within the Nineteen Eighties is its franchises should energize native fan bases, mentioned Mike Lewis, a professor on the Goizueta College of Enterprise at Emory College, who research sports activities advertising and marketing and sports activities analytics.
“One of many challenges for the WNBA is that they’re now making an attempt to construct that native fandom in an period the place native media has type of died off in plenty of methods,” mentioned Lewis, who additionally runs an annual fan survey known as Subsequent Era Fandom Survey for Emory Advertising and marketing Analytics Heart’s Fanalytics.
That’s the place first-year stars like Clark and Reese may assist construct traction.
The rookies have built-in social media bases that also needs to assist. Reese, the self-dubbed Bayou Barbie now with the Chicago Sky, has greater than 476,000 followers on X alone and three.1 million on Instagram. Clark has 2.2 million on IG.
“They’ve obtained lots in entrance of them that doubtlessly will be the market that they covet,” Elmore mentioned of the WNBA’s potential attain.
Demand already has WNBA groups shifting video games towards Clark’s Indiana Fever to larger arenas. The 2-time defending champion Las Vegas Aces turned the primary crew within the league to promote out its allotted season tickets earlier than a season began — again in March.
“We’ve used that device to essentially develop our viewers, our followers internationally,” Taurasi mentioned of social media. “And it’s been superb to see this rookie class actually latch on to that and take it to new ranges. And, , it’s helped … the WNBA. It’s helped faculty basketball. It’s actually been a deal with to look at.”
Company America additionally appears to sense {that a} WNBA motion is looming, leaping on board with particular person endorsement offers for gamers.
— Candace Parker went from retirement to president of Adidas’ ladies’s basketball after her 16-year relationship with the corporate.
— Clark had a Nike deal introduced late final month for her personal signature shoe. Clark and UConn’s Paige Bueckers each obtained Gatorade endorsements whereas in faculty.
— Two-time MVP and Aces star A’ja Wilson simply adopted her new Gatorade deal by asserting her personal Nike shoe A’One inside the previous week.
Ticket gross sales and viewership are up throughout the WNBA, and the league is increasing with new groups in California and Canada. WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert mentioned extra corporations are working with the league.
With all the thrill across the WNBA, Jack Silverstein, a Chicago sports activities historian and creator of “Why We Root: Mad Obsessions of a Chicago Sports activities Fan,” mentioned evaluating the league to the NBA will be unfair.
Silverstein factors out that the NBA has a 51-year head begin over the WNBA and that new leagues and groups evolve as leisure with their very own id, which wants momentum to maintain shifting.
He believes the WNBA is having fun with momentum it will probably construct on.
“I believe that when this WNBA season is over,” Silverstein mentioned, “you might be taking a look at, no matter anybody thinks development goes to appear to be this yr, it may find yourself exceeding that wildly.”
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Related Press journalist Claire Savage, a member of the ladies within the workforce crew, contributed reporting. The Related Press’ ladies within the workforce and state authorities protection receives monetary help from Pivotal Ventures. AP is solely answerable for all content material. Discover AP’s requirements for working with philanthropies, a listing of supporters and funded protection areas at AP.org.
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