This fall, the WNBA wrapped its most-viewed season in 21 years, introduced an growth for the primary time since 2008 and noticed its highest attendance in 13 years. And that’s simply the beginning.
WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert advised Adweek she has a recreation plan to maintain the exponential progress going, particularly contemplating a current Sports activities Innovation Lab examine exhibiting 83% of manufacturers plan to extend their funding in ladies’s sports activities media in 2024.
“That’s a really, very compelling statistic for company companions to say, ‘Don’t be disregarded, be part of this rising ladies’s sports activities momentum,’” Engelbert mentioned. “It’s simply good enterprise.”
In a 12 months of unprecedented WNBA progress, which included 205 out of 240 video games broadcast on nationwide platforms, the league additionally introduced its complete variety of company companions as much as 42—the very best in WNBA historical past. That quantity rises to 44 in the beginning of the brand new 12 months, following the addition of Skims and Peloton.
And it’s no secret that ladies’s basketball is a spot the place manufacturers wish to be. The NCAA event noticed the most-watched ladies’s school basketball recreation of all time with the ultimate between LSU and Iowa in 2023, with 9.9 million common viewers tuning in—a 103% year-over-year enhance—and the numbers topping out at 12.6 million.
“We’ve labored exhausting on capitalizing on the momentum from the NCAA viewership in Remaining 4 and March Insanity, attempting to do two issues: construct family names and rivalries,” mentioned Engelbert. “Company companions are noticing, and [they’re] seeing the advantages of partnering with the WNBA, as a result of our fanbase has a demographic and psychographic that they’re after for his or her shopper manufacturers.”
For instance of this sports activities advertising technique, the WNBA’s draft lottery—which noticed the Indiana Fever draw the No. 1 decide for the second 12 months in a row—aired Dec. 10 amid an NCAA triple header on ESPN, which Engelbert confirmed was a deliberate solution to capitalize on school basketball’s recognition.
Changemakers are altering issues
The WNBA’s speedy model progress can hint its roots to the Changemakers program, a partnership and sponsorship program Engelbert launched in 2020 as a means to assist the league overhaul its enterprise.
Thus far, the WNBA has six companions within the Changemakers program, and it has seen an instantaneous impression.