Why the WNBA’s new TV deal is the biggest bargain in sports broadcasting

Last season, ESPN averaged about 1.2 million viewers per WNBA game. (Photo by Matthew Huang/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

(Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

This season, 245 WNBA games (including the maximum number of possible playoff games) will be broadcast nationally. Under the current broadcast contracts, that comes out to a charge of about $1.15 million per game. By comparison, the NHL is charging about $2.26 million for 277 regular-season and playoff games.

Should a WNBA game be worth about half an NHL game?

“The players have driven every meaningful metric, and the league is skyrocketing into a different atmosphere right now,” Women’s National Basketball Players Association executive director Terri Carmichael Jackson told Yahoo Sports in an emailed statement. “The value of the media rights should move with it. We see that clearly and expect future deals to reflect that reality, with players part of the process as they should be.”

Jackson has questioned the value of the deal since it was agreed upon nearly two years ago. “We look forward to learning how the NBA arrived at a $200 million valuation,” Jackson told FOS in 2024. “There is no excuse to undervalue the WNBA again.”

The new deals are roughly 6.5 times greater than the average annual value of the previous deal that expired at the end of last season. The league and its media partners have agreed that it could revisit the value of the deals after three years to reflect the league’s growth.

If the latest financial data is any indication, the W has already outgrown the media rights deal before it’s even started.

WNBA team valuations released this week by CNBC saw the average team worth $460 million, with the Golden State Valkyries becoming the first ever women’s sports team worth $1 billion as they enter just their second season in the league. Golden State was admitted to the W less than three years ago for a $50 million expansion fee. The Toronto Tempo are valued at $325 million after paying a $115 million expansion fee in 2024, and the expansion Portland Fire are valued at $380 million after their $125 million fee two years ago.

The W’s three-year adjustment option is similar to a strategy the NWSL took last fall. Two years into a four-year, $240 million media rights deal with CBS, ESPN, Prime Video and Scripps, viewership on ESPN grew 72% year over year. With larger audiences and more game inventory as the soccer league added teams, the media deal expanded to include more games from its four existing partners while tacking on nearly 30 matches per season from a new partner, emerging streamer Victory+.

The NWSL and its partners realized midway through the contract that they had to adjust the size and scope of the deal to reflect accelerated, tangible progress and adapted accordingly. Jackson and the WNBPA stressed that the media deal’s value should grow as the WNBA does. With Toronto and Portland entering the league this weekend and new teams coming to Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia by 2030, a mid-deal re-evaluation seems inevitable. Until then, $281 million a year to broadcast the W could be one of sports business’ best bargains.