Correction: A earlier model of this story incorrectly reported Candace Parker’s tenure in Chicago. She performed with the Sky for 2 years.
NEW YORK — The WNBA season is over, and what a season it was. Skyrocketing TV scores. Huge attendance spikes. Jerseys of high gamers flying off the cabinets. Constitution flights and extra purpose-built amenities.
The good points made throughout this season have been transformative and can assist push the league to the subsequent degree. Growth is on the best way, a brand new TV deal goes to assist considerably bolster salaries and incoming expertise will solely assist elevate the extent of play.
There’s been a lot demand this season that earlier than the 2024 WNBA Finals – in an exciting Sport 5 – commissioner Cathy Engelbert introduced the , mirroring the NBA. Moreover, first-round video games will swap to a 1-1-1 format, permitting each groups to host video games.
Merely put, there’s by no means been a greater time for this league.
With that in thoughts, listed below are the winners and losers from the 2024 WNBA season.
WINNERSPlayers
These paltry salaries are quickly to be a factor of the previous.
The present collective bargaining settlement doesn’t expire till after the 2027 season, however nobody expects it can final that lengthy. Not when a league that was already trending upward has skilled the form of explosive development the WNBA has.
The brand new media-rights deal alone is value a reported $200 million a 12 months, greater than thrice the present package deal. Sponsors are flocking to each the league and the person groups. The growth payment for the Portland staff was $125 million, and there’s one other staff nonetheless to come back.
Whereas gamers are nonetheless weighing their choices, they’re extensively anticipated to choose out earlier than the Nov. 1 deadline for each the WNBA Gamers Affiliation and the league. If both facet does so, the CBA would expire on the finish of subsequent season.
“It’s a tough factor to navigate whereas the season remains to be occurring. I feel that we’re just about in a spot the place we all know what we need to do,” Breanna Stewart, the vice chairman of the WNBPA, advised the Related Press just lately.
Whereas gamers are prone to additionally need enhancements in working situations and household advantages, salaries are anticipated to be the highest precedence. The league’s minimal wage is $64,154 whereas the supermax is $241,984.
New followers
We see you, W followers whose allegiance was initially centered round one participant.
You rooted for Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese once they have been in school, and adopted them to Indiana and Chicago, respectively. However as soon as you bought there, you realized there was much more to the league than only one or two gamers. You have been dazzled by A’ja Wilson’s record-breaking season and impressed with Napheesa Collier’s stifling protection. You fell for Kahleah Copper’s all-around brilliance and may’t imagine Nneka Ogwumike and Skylar Diggins-Smith have solely been taking part in collectively a 12 months.
By embracing the entire league, you’ve made it higher and we’re glad you’re right here.
Sponsors who bought in early
It’s not solely stylish to spend money on girls’s sports activities lately, it’s good enterprise, too. However kudos to the businesses that have been early adopters of the WNBA (and NWSL, too). Corporations resembling American Categorical, State Farm and Pepsi. And let’s not overlook the OGs, Gatorade and Nike. They noticed the potential many years in the past reasonably than ready to comply with the herd.
Germany
New York’s first title wouldn’t have been potential with out the play of rookie Leonie Fiebich (13 factors, seven rebounds, two steals) or Nyara Sabally (13 factors, seven rebounds, 71% FG), two younger German stars who performed this summer time on the . Germany is a staff on the rise internationally, and the subsequent step within the evolution of the WNBA entails globalization of the sport. May extra younger Europeans be headed over to the States to play in the summertime quickly?
Free company
Free company was by no means thought-about that large of a deal within the WNBA till the previous few years. Candace Parker leaving LA for her hometown of Chicago – and main the Sky to a title in one in every of her two season there – began the development. Then the Liberty made a tough play for Stewart, a seven-year Seattle Storm star, and veteran guard Courtney Vandersloot, then of Chicago. The Liberty have been daring of their declaration of eager to win a title and promised to deal with gamers the fitting approach in the event that they dedicated to New York.
It took an additional 12 months, however their plan labored. And you’ll wager different groups will attempt to comply with go well with and get much more aggressive in free company.
LOSERSOther new followers
The one upside to the season ending is we not have to listen to or see the trash people who used Caitlin Clark as an excuse to direct racist and homophobic abuse at different gamers. The W shouldn’t be determined sufficient that it wants these people in its fan base, and league officers now have six months to determine a solution to weed them out.
Homeowners who nonetheless suppose they’ll function on a budget
One tremendous staff gained all of it (New York), the opposite tremendous staff (Las Vegas) went to the semifinals. The opposite two groups to play within the Finals (Minnesota) and semifinals (Connecticut) are franchises which have made severe commitments to successful.
A transparent message has been despatched throughout the league, and gamers are being attentive to which homeowners are investing of their groups (like with state-of-the-art apply amenities) and which aren’t. The hole between the have and have-nots within the WNBA goes to get wider if all homeowners don’t meet the second.
HBO
How has the cable large not but dedicated to “Onerous Knocks: WNBA” and what do we now have to do to get them there?
Whereas we’re at it, now that Unequalled has signed a TV cope with TNT to broadcast the brand new 3-on-3 league, can the W get its personal model of “Contained in the NBA,” fairly please? Sydney Colson commenting on girls’s hoops could be must-see TV.
Us
No extra WNBA for six entire months. Good factor the regular-season schedule is increasing in 2025 and going as much as 44 video games, plus a best-of-seven Finals sequence.
For those who want a girls’s basketball repair, don’t have any worry, as a result of the school season is simply across the nook. The perfect half about school hoops, after all, is which you could see the way forward for the WNBA once you watch younger superstars resembling Paige Bueckers (UConn), JuJu Watkins (USC), Hannah Hidalgo (Notre Dame), Flau’jae Johnson (LSU) and MiLaysia Fulwiley (South Carolina), amongst others.