Adam Silver Defends WNBA Media Deal Being Tied to NBA

When the NBA signed a media-rights deal with Disney, NBCUniversal, and Amazon in July, it represented a win for the WNBA as well. 

The WNBA, of which the NBA owns 60%, will receive $2.2 billion over 11 years—or about $200 million per year. It’s a small chunk of the $77 billion the NBA agreed to, but it is significant for the WNBA as the annual sum was more than three times as much as its current deal.

However, given the WNBA’s unprecedented growth this past season, there have been questions about whether the league should have negotiated its media deals independently. NBA commissioner Adam Silver defended the partnership during an interview with CNBC.

“Should we collectively have gone out and had separate discussions around the WNBA? I would say, in essence, we did, and we’re always testing the market. To say the market may be in a different place than it was at the time we were negotiating, we’ll see,” Silver said.

Silver reiterated the WNBA is still in talks with other partners to add to its media-rights deal total.

“I’d say in the aggregate, with the deals we already did, plus the deals that the WNBA now is going to do, the remaining packages, you’re looking at roughly a six times increase from the current rights fees. Could we have done even better than that? I’m not sure,” Silver said. 

ESPN reported in July the WNBA’s final media deal could reach up to $3 billion, which amounts to about $272 million annually, more than four times as much as the $60 million per year from the current deal. That deal includes regular-season games on CBS Sports and Scripps Sports’ Ion, and renewing those packages is key to pushing the league to the $3 billion mark.

Scripps Sports president Brian Lawlor told Front Office Sports in September he expects a “long-term relationship” with the WNBA.

WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in April it’s beneficial for the league to negotiate alongside the NBA because of its relatively small content inventory.

“There’s no other set of two sports leagues that can offer that live programming and sports to a streamer like that,” Engelbert said. “I would say probably, in that case, we need the NBA because we have a smaller footprint with only 40 games, and it’s nice to go to market together.”

Addressing NBA Owners’ Frustration

Silver was asked during the CNBC interview about a story by the New York Post from earlier this month which reported some NBA owners were frustrated with the financial losses coming from the WNBA and the lack of transparency from the league.

Despite the successful season, the WNBA is reportedly still expected to lose $40 million this season.

Silver gave a vague response, simply saying the two leagues are working together with NBA owners and evaluating their relationship.

“I would just say the answer is: Yes, we’re working with WNBA owners, WNBA owners that also own NBA teams, and then more broadly, the NBA owners, on what the right valuation of WNBA teams are going forward, [and] what the best way is to operate that league,” Silver said.