The WNBA has carried its CBA momentum to a new media deal.
On Wednesday, the WNBA and CBS Sports announced a new, long-term media rights agreement that will include up to 20 regular-season games across CBS and Paramount+. The financial terms of the deal were not immediately announced.
The announcement also said that CBS will air the maximum 20 regular-season games during the upcoming 2026 season, the most WNBA games the network has aired on broadcast television.
CBS already aired 20 WNBA regular-season games last year, but the games were split between the CBS Television Network broadcast channel and the CBS Sports Network cable channel. Last year, nine WNBA games were on CBS, while 11 were on CBS Sports Network.
The new deal does not include games on cable, a significant pivot from the first media deal between the two sides in 2019, which included 40 games that aired exclusively on CBS Sports Network.
The focus on free TV aligns with the NBA’s strategy since signing its 11-year, $77 billion media deal in 2024—$2.2 billion of which was for the WNBA. The NBA’s media partners in the new deal—Disney, NBCUniversal, and Amazon Prime—either had broadcast TV or streaming options.
The NBA dropped Warner Bros. Discovery, which primarily aired games on cable through TNT and TruTV. WBD sued and ultimately settled with the NBA after the league moved forward with its new partners.
CBS averaged 1.28 million viewers across its nine games on CBS last year, according to Nielsen data. This includes 2.2 million for the Indiana Fever vs. New York Liberty on May 24, one of the most-watched games of the WNBA season across all networks.
CBS Sports Network ratings are not included in Nielsen data.
