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A historic season for the WNBA could come to a close tonight as the New York Liberty look to clinch a title over the Minnesota Lynx in Game 4 of the finals. Attendance has soared this season. TV ratings are up. And though there were growing pains, league officials say it was the most transformational year in its history. NPR's Becky Sullivan reports.
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: The first thing I should say is, when it comes to why exactly the league took off this year, that's a bit of a contentious question. One factor for sure - the arrival of a certain superstar rookie.
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CATHY ENGELBERT: With the first pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft, the Indiana Fever select Caitlin Clark - University of Iowa.
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SULLIVAN: Caitlin Clark had already transformed the college game by the time she was drafted in April. Soon enough, she was filling arenas with brand-new WNBA fans. This season, average attendance across the league shot up about 50%, and ratings on ESPN were up more than double over last year. But it wasn't only for Clark, as the all-time WNBA great Sue Bird says.
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SUE BIRD: Viewership numbers with Caitlin Clark are astronomical. And yes, the games where she's not playing have lower viewership.
SULLIVAN: She talked about this last week on her podcast, "A Touch More."
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BIRD: But the WNBA playoff semifinal games - where Caitlin obviously is not in it 'cause her team lost - are still breaking records from previous WNBA years...
MEGAN RAPINOE: Yes.
BIRD: ...Are still cracking a million viewers.
SULLIVAN: And it's been true all season long. So to tick off some more factors at play, you had other superstar rookies like Angel Reese of the Chicago Sky, serious financial investment that had begun even before this year and a rising interest in women's sports generally. But no matter the cause, the spoils have been many. The tired jokes about women's basketball have been replaced with serious segments on sports talk shows. A new broadcast rights deal reached this summer bumped the league's TV revenue by more than 300%, which could lead to higher salaries for players, alongside the growing opportunities for commercial deals.
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ENGELBERT: There's virtually not a sporting event you can turn on where one of our players is not in an ad spot. That was not happening five years ago.
SULLIVAN: That's league commissioner Cathy Engelbert. Now, for the first time in a decade and a half, the WNBA is growing. Next season, the Golden State Valkyries will become the league's 13th team, followed in 2026 by expansion clubs in Toronto and Portland. And where WNBA teams were once relegated to second-tier venues, now, owners are competing to provide state-of-the-art facilities, Engelbert said, ahead of game one of the finals.
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ENGELBERT: When I came into this league, someone said, you should all be playing in 5,000-seat arenas. Can you imagine what you're going to see out here tonight if that was in a 5,000-seat arena? You know, no, there's going to be 17,000-plus people here.
SULLIVAN: It's not been all sunshine and roses this year, to be clear. The explosion of attention exposed players to racism and harassment. Clark was often the focal point, as new fans took issue with hard fouls and her being left off the Olympic roster. But Clark is out of the playoffs now, and it's the New York Liberty and the Minnesota Lynx enjoying their time in the sun, with celebrities dotting the sidelines, including the most famous courtside fan in all of basketball, Spike Lee.
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SABRINA IONESCU: He was over there chirping at the refs, talking to the players.
SULLIVAN: This is Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu.
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IONESCU: It's been nice to see how much kind of, like, our support has grown over the last few years and over this season alone.
SULLIVAN: The finals have lived up to the hype. Game 3 was an instant classic, with a last-second deep three by Ionescu that lit up the sports world.
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RYAN RUOCCO: Four seconds - Ionescu will heave...
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RUOCCO: ...And hit - and hit.
SULLIVAN: The players can feel how big this all is for the W. Here's Kayla McBride, the All-Star guard for the Lynx, talking to reporters yesterday.
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KAYLA MCBRIDE: Where we are as a league - it's at an all-time high. Like, the athletes, the talent, the basketball that's just being played, like, on a night-in, night-out basis, even in the regular season - it's been so much fun to be a part of. So to be here in the finals and knowing that you're a part of that is really special.
SULLIVAN: It's exactly the kind of finals the league was hoping for, the capstone on the season they were hoping for, the challenge for the future to keep that momentum going.
Becky Sullivan, NPR News.
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