2024 WNBA season winners and losers: TV ratings boost ahead of league expansion

NEW YORK — The WNBA season is over, and what a season it was. Skyrocketing TV ratings. Big attendance spikes. Jerseys of top players flying off the shelves. Charter flights and more purpose-built facilities.

The gains made during this season have been transformative and will help push the league to the next level. Expansion is on the way, a new TV deal is going to help significantly bolster salaries and incoming talent will only help elevate the level of play.

There’s been so much demand this season that before the 2024 WNBA Finals – which the New York Liberty won in a thrilling Game 5 – commissioner Cathy Engelbert announced the 2025 Finals will move to a seven-game series, mirroring the NBA. Additionally, first-round games will switch to a 1-1-1 format, allowing both teams to host games.

Simply put, there’s never been a better time for this league.

With that in mind, here are the winners and losers from the 2024 WNBA season.

WINNERS

Players

Those paltry salaries are soon to be a thing of the past.

The current collective bargaining agreement doesn’t expire until after the 2027 season, but no one expects it will last that long. Not when a league that was already trending upward has experienced the kind of explosive growth the WNBA has.

The new media-rights deal alone is worth a reported $200 million a year, more than three times the current package. Sponsors are flocking to both the league and the individual teams. The expansion fee for the Portland team was $125 million, and there’s another team still to come.

While players are still weighing their options, they are widely expected to opt out before the Nov. 1 deadline for both the WNBA Players Association and the league. If either side does so, the CBA would expire at the end of next season.

“It’s a hard thing to navigate while the season is still happening. I think that we’re pretty much in a place where we know what we want to do,” Breanna Stewart, the vice president of the WNBPA, told the Associated Press recently.

While players are likely to also want improvements in working conditions and family benefits, salaries are expected to be the top priority. The league’s minimum salary is $64,154 while the supermax is $241,984.

New fans

We see you, W fans whose allegiance was originally centered around one player.

You rooted for Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese when they were in college, and followed them to Indiana and Chicago, respectively. But once you got there, you realized there was a lot more to the league than just one or two players. You were dazzled by A’ja Wilson’s record-breaking season and impressed with Napheesa Collier’s stifling defense. You fell for Kahleah Copper’s all-around brilliance and can’t believe Nneka Ogwumike and Skylar Diggins-Smith have only been playing together a year.

By embracing the whole league, you’ve made it better and we’re glad you’re here.

Sponsors who got in early

It’s not only trendy to invest in women’s sports these days, it’s good business, too. But kudos to the companies that were early adopters of the WNBA (and NWSL, too). Companies such as American Express, State Farm and Pepsi. And let’s not forget the OGs, Gatorade and Nike. They saw the potential decades ago rather than waiting to follow the herd.

Germany

New York’s first title would not have been possible without the play of rookie Leonie Fiebich (13 points, seven rebounds, two steals) or Nyara Sabally (13 points, seven rebounds, 71% FG), two young German stars who played this summer at the Paris Olympics. Germany is a team on the rise internationally, and the next step in the evolution of the WNBA involves globalization of the game. Might more young Europeans be headed over to the States to play in the summer soon?

Free agency

Free agency was never considered that big of a deal in the WNBA until the past few years. Candace Parker leaving LA for her hometown of Chicago – and leading the Sky to a title in her only season there – started the trend. Then the Liberty made a hard play for Stewart, a seven-year Seattle Storm star, and veteran guard Courtney Vandersloot, then of Chicago. The Liberty were bold in their declaration of wanting to win a title and promised to treat players the right way if they committed to New York.

It took an extra year, but their plan worked. And you can bet other teams will try to follow suit and get even more aggressive in free agency.

LOSERS

Other new fans

The only upside to the season ending is we no longer have to hear or see the trash humans who used Caitlin Clark as an excuse to direct racist and homophobic abuse at other players. The W is not desperate enough that it needs these folks in its fan base, and league officials now have six months to figure out a way to weed them out.

Owners who still think they can operate on the cheap

One super team won it all (New York), the other super team (Las Vegas) went to the semifinals. The other two teams to play in the Finals (Minnesota) and semifinals (Connecticut) are franchises that have made serious commitments to winning.

A clear message has been sent across the league, and players are paying attention to which owners are investing in their teams (like with state-of-the-art practice facilities) and which aren’t. The gap between the have and have-nots in the WNBA is going to get wider if all owners don’t meet the moment.

HBO

How has the cable giant not yet committed to “Hard Knocks: WNBA” and what do we have to do to get them there?

While we’re at it, now that Unrivaled has signed a TV deal with TNT to broadcast the new 3-on-3 league, can the W get its own version of “Inside the NBA,” pretty please? Sydney Colson commenting on women’s hoops would be must-see TV.

Us

No more WNBA for six whole months. Good thing the regular-season schedule is expanding in 2025 and going up to 44 games, plus a best-of-seven Finals series.

If you need a women’s basketball fix, have no fear, because the college season is just around the corner. The best part about college hoops, of course, is that you can see the future of the WNBA when you watch young superstars such as Paige Bueckers (UConn), JuJu Watkins (USC), Hannah Hidalgo (Notre Dame), Flau’jae Johnson (LSU) and MiLaysia Fulwiley (South Carolina), among others.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: WNBA 2024 season winners and losers: TV ratings up, attendance rises