WNBA Takes Its Preseason College Series to a New Level

The WNBA returns to action Friday with preseason play bringing back a series started by the league last year to further embed itself into the college campuses of its stars. 

For the first time in league history, multiple teams will head to their franchise player’s college campus to play a preseason game. The Chicago Sky and the Las Vegas Aces kick things off by returning to their franchise stars’ alma maters on Friday night. Altogether, four games will be played on college campuses.

Last year the trend began with a game between the Las Vegas Aces and the Puerto Rico National Team hosted by three-time MVP A’ja Wilson’s alma mater, South Carolina. 

Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso will begin their sophomore season with the Chicago Sky at LSU with a game against the Brazilian National Team. The Aces, meanwhile, will head to South Bend, Ind., for a game against the Dallas Wings at Purcell Pavillion. Aces guards Jackie Young and Jewell Loyd, along with Wings guard Arike Ogunbowale, all played at Notre Dame. 

“I became the Bayou Barbie [at LSU,]” Reese told reporters in Chicago earlier this week. “I won a national championship there. That’s home for me.”

Cardoso won a national championship with South Carolina before being drafted by the Sky third overall last year, but she is a member of Brazil’s national team, adding to the intrigue.

Tickets for Friday night’s game at LSU’s Pete Maravich Assembly Center were selling for as little as $31 and as much as $135 on Ticketmaster hours before tipoff at 9 p.m. The game, which is part of the WNBA’s slate of 15 preseason games ahead of opening night on May 16, will be broadcast on ION and WNBA League Pass. 

The Aces-Wings game will also be highlighted by No. 1 overall pick Paige Buecker’s unofficial WNBA debut. The game tips off at 7 p.m. and will be broadcast on ION and WNBA League Pass. Tickets being sold on Notre Dame’s website range from $23 to $265. 

Only one WNBA preseason game will be broadcast nationally on ESPN and that’s the Indiana Fever’s matchup against the Brazilian National Team on May 4 at Carver Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City, Iowa, where Fever star Caitlin Clark played. 

Tickets to the exhibition game have sold out and the average resale price is up to $440. The highest ticket price on Ticketmaster was $2,125 two days before the game. According to data ticketing technology company Victory Live provided to Front Office Sports, that average resale price is the most for any game Clark has played in professionally or collegiately. 

This is also the first time in WNBA history that multiple preseason games will be broadcast nationally. The move comes after a livestream of one of last season’s preseason games between the Sky and Minnesota Lynx went viral, drawing more than 2 million viewers. 

Last year’s game was incorrectly displayed as being available to watch on the WNBA League Pass app. However, fans were unable to stream the broadcast, which led them to the livestream a fan was broadcasting from the preseason game at the Target Center last year. 

Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve was a fierce critic of the WNBA’s poor response to fans’ appetite for preseason games last year, saying in part, “Business as usual isn’t going to work anymore.” 

Reeve was pleased to see expanded accessibility to all 15 of the WNBA’s preseason games this year.

“I think last year this time, when the preseason games started and the level of enthusiasm from our fans wanting to watch preseason basketball … the league saw that there was an appetite for that and so it’s a nice evolution for the league,” Reeve told media earlier this week. 

The WNBA’s final preseason game will be played on May 12 and will be hosted by the University of Oregon, Sabrina Ionescu and Nyara Sabally’s alma mater. The New York Liberty will play the Toyota Antelopes of the Japan Basketball League. Ticket prices on Ticketmaster range from $17 to $327.