NFL Fans in the Smallest Markets Are Buying the Most Merchandise
The WNBA just put up one of its most historic regular seasons. Attendance and viewership are up, players are breaking on-court records left and right, and national media outlets are covering the league like never before. The all-WNBA Team USA got another gold medal in the Paris Olympics, players finally got charter flights, and execs signed a massive media-rights deal that will bring a flood of new cash to the league.
Now is the time for all that mounting excitement to reach its peak. Welcome to the playoffs.
The final seeding was decided Thursday, the last night of the regular season, and the same night the Mystics and Fever broke the WNBA’s 26-year-old regular-season attendance record. The playoffs begin Sunday afternoon in a best-of-three first round.
No. 1 Liberty will play No. 8 Dream, No. 2 Lynx are matched up against No. 7 Mercury, No. 3 Sun will take on No. 6 Fever, and No. 4 Aces face No. 5 Storm. It’s time to crown a champion of the season that changed the WNBA forever.
The league is riding a financial wave into the playoffs.
This season, the league saw a huge spike in ticket sales, both for Clark’s games and ones without her. Before the season even started, StubHub sales jumped 93% from that time last year. When the Fever came to town, teams including the Mystics, Aces, and Dream moved from their relatively small arena to their city’s larger one.
But this isn’t just a Clark phenomenon. Teams in just about every market are finding ways to level up. The Sun sold out Boston’s TD Garden in a game against the Sparks in August. The Wings announced before the season started that they’ll move to a bigger arena in 2026. And the Sky committed in July to building a new, $38 million practice facility.
Expect more revenue record-smashing in the playoffs. Expect teams with NBA capacity to open the upper bowl for more games, if not all games. Expect ticket prices, viewership numbers, and attendance to soar. The playoffs are going to be the moment to see the new era of the WNBA operating at full capacity, particularly in markets where NBA-sized arenas and playoff teams coalesce in New York, Minnesota, Seattle, Phoenix, and Indiana.
Whatever happens in the next few weeks helps set the tone for what the WNBA is able to accomplish, especially from a media-rights perspective. Soaring viewership could impact the potential reevaluation of the $2.2 billion deal with ESPN, NBC, and Amazon (which is already an option three years after it starts) and can also attract more advertisers and owners looking to invest in the league.
The playoffs will compete for eyeballs with the NFL—a lot.
All WNBA playoff games will air nationally on ABC, ESPN, or ESPN2. Although no games will be played on Mondays to avoid overlapping with ESPN’s Monday Night Football or Saturdays to conflict with the network’s college coverage, the playoffs will go up against the NFL a significant amount.
The league’s broadcasts will clash with the NFL up to seven times. Clark’s first playoff game, for example, will overlap with the divisional matchup between the 49ers and Rams. In October, if the best-of-five WNBA Finals make it to a championship-deciding tiebreaker, that game will be played on NFL Sunday—the same day as the Super Bowl rematch between the Chiefs and 49ers. Other potential conflicts during the WNBA playoffs include Bills-Ravens, a playoff rematch between the Eagles and Buccaneers, Ravens-Bengals, and Bills-Texans.
Going up against the NFL isn’t anything new for the WNBA playoffs. Game 1 of last season’s Finals drew its best viewership in 23 years while playing on NFL Sunday. But despite the growth, all games of the Finals each got fewer than one million viewers, a milestone the league has hit more than 20 times during the 2024 regular season.
The Fever made the playoffs after an abysmal start to the season.
In many ways, this WNBA season has belonged to the Fever. Thanks to the Caitlin Clark Effect, Indiana has dominated headlines, set attendance records at home and away, forced opponents to move to bigger arenas to accommodate crowds, smashed TV viewership numbers, and driven up ticket revenue. Yet the team’s play at the beginning of the season didn’t pack the same punch.
Clark, the No. 1 pick, recorded 10 turnovers in her debut, and the Fever struggled to jell over the following weeks with the most jam-packed schedule in the league, playing 11 games in their first 20 days. In May, they went 1–8. Things started clicking more as the season went on, but the real success has come since the Olympic break. Since resuming play Aug. 16, the team has gone 9–5, including a five-game win streak.
This postseason won’t be an easy one for the Fever, in their first playoffs since 2016. They’ll play the Sun in the first round, one of the strongest teams in the league, and one with whom the Fever have developed something of a rivalry. The Sun lead this season’s series between the teams 3–1, with two of the games decided by four points. With Clark having such an impact on national viewership, it would be great for the WNBA if the Fever pull off the upset, but it won’t come easily.
Only a few high-profile rookies will be playing for a title.
It was impossible to miss the star-studded rookie class that drew the largest audience to the draft in decades, and may have been the biggest factor propelling the league’s growth and upgrades this season. Four months later, a fraction of them have made it to the playoffs.
To start, only 13 of the 36 players drafted found their way onto rosters, while No. 2 pick Cameron Brink and No. 7 pick Angel Reese sustained season-ending injuries. A handful wound up on teams that missed the playoffs: No. 3 Kamilla Cardoso (Sky), No. 4 Rickea Jackson (Sparks), No. 5 Jacy Sheldon (Wings), and No. 6 Aaliyah Edwards (Mystics).
Beyond Clark, No. 8 pick Alissa Pili (Lynx), No. 14 Nika Mühl (Storm), No. 11 Marquesha Davis (Liberty), No. 15 Celeste Taylor (Mercury), and fan favorite No. 18 Kate Martin (Aces) will all be in action.
Diana Taurasi could be making her last stand.
The White Mamba has been quiet about when she’s going to call it a career. In 2022, she told ESPN she’ll let everyone know when she’s done. “I still feel like I have a little bit left,” she said, “and a lot to do.”
The Mercury, with whom Taurasi has spent her entire 20-year WNBA career, have had quite a year. Under new head coach Nate Tibbetts, the team unveiled a sparkling $100 million practice facility in July, hosted a highly competitive All-Star Game, and made the playoffs as a seven-seed this year after winning only nine games last season.
There’s good reason to think Taurasi may be throwing a retirement party. The Mercury loudly promoted the team’s last regular-season game Thursday with video tributes and custom T-shirts for fans, thanking Taurasi “if this is it.” Despite fans’ chants for “one more year,” the 42-year-old didn’t announce any decision in front of what could be her final home crowd. “Once the season’s over, I’ll have a better idea of what it looks like for me in the future,” Taurasi said in her press conference.
Taurasi, who will become a free agent this offseason, has been clear about wanting her fourth championship, having not won since 2014. Should the Mercury not win it all this year, Taurasi could join other GOATs like Michael Jordan and Tom Brady with an end-of-career switch from her longtime team in hopes of a ring.
Four teams are the most likely to steal headlines.
Perhaps the most lethal team in the WNBA flies largely under the radar of casual fans. The Lynx won the midseason Commissioner’s Cup tournament, beating the Liberty in the final. Minnesota also beat New York in two of their three matchups this season. Napheesa Collier, who cofounded the upcoming offseason 3-on-3 league Unrivaled with the Liberty’s Breanna Stewart, is averaging more than 20 points and nearly 10 rebounds per game.
The Sun have also been a contender all year, amassing their own Big Three of sorts with DeWanna Bonner, Alyssa Thomas, and DiJonai Carrington (although they’re not paying for it like the Liberty, because Carrington is having a breakout year while taking home less than $80,000 annually). They went toe-to-toe with the Lynx three times this season, winning twice. The franchise has made it to at least the second round of the playoffs every year since 2017, but it has never won a championship.
The Aces aren’t exactly where they want to be seeding-wise, having faltered at various points throughout the season and wound up in the No. 4 spot. But with a rabid fan base and the historic performance of Wilson this season, don’t count them out just yet.
And the No. 1 team, the Liberty, is just waiting for the right moment to strike. After winning the Commissioner’s Cup last season, the Liberty fell to the Aces in the Finals. New York has remained stable throughout this season, and if the team can learn to beat the Lynx (or have someone else do it for them), the Liberty could bring home their first title. If the team can’t get it done this year, it could be time for New York and its Big Three of Sabrina Ionescu, Breanna Stewart, and Jonquel Jones—who each took pay cuts and make about $50,000 less than the league’s highest-paid player—to reevaluate their trio.
