WNBA Could Make New Broadcasting Deal Separate from NBA as it Seeks Higher Revenues
The league feels its rights are undervalued, and as it’s poised to add superstar Caitlin Clark the WNBA may expand its search outside ESPN for broadcast partners.
The NBA has been embedded with ESPN in negotiations over the league’s next broadcasting deal. The two sides are deep in their exclusive negotiating window, which is due to end on April 22. Like the NBA, the WNBA’s broadcasting deal with ESPN expires following the 2024-25 season, and the two leagues have been negotiating their next contract with the channel together. But a new report from Front Office Sports indicates that the WNBA may break out of joint negotiations and try to find a deal of its own that won’t include the NBA in talks.
- The WNBA currently makes around $60 million per season from TV and streaming deals with ABC/ESPN, Prime Video, CBS, and ION.
- The report suggests the league wants to increase its rights fees to $80 million per season or more.
- The arrival of Caitlin Clark could send league ratings skyrocketing, and it wants to capitalize on those potential earnings now.
The report from FOS indicates that the WNBA thinks its rights are undervalued. The league may have a case to make in that regard, as its games were watched by an average of 462,000 viewers each on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and CBS last season. By comparison, the NHL averaged 474,000 viewers per game in contests on ESPN and TNT in the 2022-23 season, just a hair more than the WNBA. The NHL is pulling in $625 million per season from its TV deals with ESPN and TNT, whereas the WNBA is making around $60 million, or less than one-tenth as much.
WNBA ratings are likely to surge even higher this year, as current Iowa Hawkeyes superstar Caitlin Clark is widely expected to be the first overall pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft on April 15. Clark became the NCAA’s all-time scoring leader across men’s and women’s basketball in March of this year, and she’s expected to lead Iowa on another deep run in the NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament.
In all, former ESPN executive John Kosner told FOS he expects the WNBA to seek between $80 million and $100 million per season for its broadcast rights in its next deal. If the league does not get the offer it wants from ABC/ESPN, it may turn to competing networks and streaming services to see how much more it can generate for its broadcast rights going forward.
If the WNBA Does Leave ESPN, Who Could it Partner With?
If Disney can’t find the extra money the WNBA is seeking, there are several other outlets that would likely show some interest in the league. First up is Amazon’s Prime Video; this service is already partnered with the Seattle Storm and shows around 30 of that team’s games every year to Seattle-area fans. Prime Video is also the league’s partner for the WNBA Commissioner’s Cup Championship game and carries a total of around 20 exclusive games per season for national audiences to enjoy.
Could CBS make a serious pursuit of the WNBA? CBS, CBS Sports Network, and Paramount+ offered 40 WNBA games during the 2023 season and would continue to be able to provide broadcast, cable, and streaming options for games. But finding the money could be a big problem for CBS; the network has already faced questions about whether it can afford to pay $2 billion per season for its NFL package, and finding another $80 to $100 million per season for the WNBA may not be in the cards for CBS’s parent company Paramount as it mulls numerous merger proposals.
NBC/Peacock are expected to show their interest in acquiring an NBA package, and could be a potential ally of the WNBA as well. Peacock already streams a huge range of live sports, and its recent deal with the Big Ten means that its audiences are already used to watching Caitlin Clark’s Iowa games. Other women’s sports available on Peacock include gymnastics, golf, track and field, figure skating and more; Peacock will also carry every event of the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Women’s sports have been cashing in of late, as the NWSL recently signed a historic broadcast agreement worth around $60 million per season — around 40 times what it had been making previously. The WNBA could seek out numerous alternate broadcast partners if it doesn’t get the raise it wants in its next contract with ABC/ESPN, as the league prepares for the entrance of superstar Caitlin Clark and the ratings that will follow her WNBA debut.
Amazon Prime Video
Amazon Prime Video is a subscription video streaming service that includes on-demand access to 10,000+ movies, TV shows, and Prime Originals like “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” “Jack Ryan,” “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel,” “The Boys,” and more. Subscribers can also add third-party services like Max, Showtime, STARZ, and dozens more with Amazon Prime Video Channels. Prime Video also offers exclusive live access to NFL Thursday Night Football.