Indeed, additional figures from Morning Consult show the number of U.S. adults who reported recently seeing, reading, or hearing something positive about the WNBA remained elevated throughout the 2024 season compared to any season in the past few years.
“For every organic moment they’ve had, it seemed like they had a marketing beat ready to go,” said Briggs.
Myriad WNBA stars also served as the faces of new brand partnerships in 2024. This year alone, Delta Air Lines, Bumble, New Balance, Skims, CarMax, DSG, Tissot, Opill, La Crema, Glossier, and UWM’s Mortgage Matchup either announced or extended deals with everyone from former basketball great Candace Parker to rookie Cameron Brink to link their brand with the WNBA.
All this activity has helped the league pursue another kind of growth. In May, the WNBA announced its 2025 Bay Area expansion team—the Golden State Valkyries—had signed up CarMax as a founding partner and Kaiser Permanente as a jersey sponsor before it had even drafted a single player. The league also awarded new franchises to Toronto and Portland, with each paying a $50 million expansion fee to join in 2026.
In July, the WNBA renewed its broadcast deals with Disney and Amazon Prime Video, and entered a new agreement with NBCUniversal (NBCU), that will distribute games on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN’s forthcoming direct-to-consumer service, NBC, Peacock, and Prime Video. The entire deal is reportedly worth $2.2 billion.
As the WNBA expands to a 44-game season and seven-game final next year—and its stars’ shoes and shooting draw increased attention—the brand’s growth in both popularity and value continues to be a team effort.
