Reflecting on their long-term take care of the NBA, ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro and EVP of Programming & Acquisitions Rosalyn Durant stated the rise of the WNBA of late offered additional motivation to resume.
“There’s a variety of demand for WNBA content material proper now, which, from our perspective, is improbable,” Pitaro stated throughout a press name. The decision was organized after the league’s affirmation of long-rumored rights offers with Disney-ESPN, NBCUniversal and Prime Video, at a reported $76 billion over 11 years.
“We’re taking a look at a rising tide proper now, the place we’re seeing our rivals within the trade actually get behind girls’s sports activities typically and behind the WNBA,” Pitaro continued. “And that’s a great factor! We love the momentum round girls’s sports activities typically however particularly across the WNBA.”
The NBA created the WNBA in 1996, however solely prior to now a number of years has it seen a surge in TV viewership and area attendance. Rookies Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, who waged memorable battles in school, have added to the professional league’s attraction, as sports activities like girls’s soccer, school softball and gymnastics have put up stellar rankings.
“We’ve been companions with the NBA since their inaugural season,” Durant famous. “It’s no secret, and Jimmy talked about the numbers and the expansion, that girls’s sports activities are ascendant. The WNBA is ascendant. It’s vibrant.”
The present WNBA contract, together with that of the NBA, runs by way of the tip of the 2024-25 season.
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert stated the league’s partnership with Disney “has been instrumental to the expansion of the WNBA and ladies’s basketball. … We sit up for constructing on the unimaginable momentum now we have achieved collectively to reinforce the visibility of the gamers and groups and offering extra partaking experiences for our followers within the years to come back.”
