How Much Does the WNBA Make Per Year?

The WNBA is seeing a lot of growth with the increase in funding, which has helped the league provide more advertising to bring more viewership to its games.

At BetMGM, online sports betting for the WNBA is at an all-time high, as their pre-season futures basketball betting was up 106% by tickets and 175% by money in 2024.

With significantly more funding, advertising, and wagering interest, alongside the popularity of the league’s youngest stars, let’s examine how much revenue the WNBA generates and where it’s coming from.

How Much Does the WNBA Make Per Year?

The WNBA generates about $200 million per year, showing significant growth from 2019 when the league brought in $102 million.

The WNBA receives $60 million from its media rights deals across broadcast, cable, and streaming platforms. Its deals with ESPN, Prime Video, Scripps, and ION expire in 2025.

WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert has said that she expects the value of the league’s rights deals to “at least double” in renegotiation.

The WNBA also relies on the NBA, which brings in about $10 billion annually, for over $15 million in funding. The NBA owns 50% of the WNBA, and the 12 WNBA teams collectively own the other half.

A big reason for the increase in popularity is the arrival of Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark, whose WNBA odds of winning an MVP award will be short for many years to come.

Last night's Fever-Sun matchup was the most bet (tickets) WNBA game in #BetMGM history! ✅pic.twitter.com/Jm55O28NuG

— John Ewing (@johnewing) May 15, 2024

Clark, who is set to make $76,535 in base salary in her rookie season, rose to prominence on a national level after her historic run with the Iowa Hawkeyes, where she picked up numerous awards, including two Naismith College Player of the Year trophies.

The Des Moines, Iowa, native’s presence helped draw nearly four million more viewers to the women’s 2024 NCAA championship game than the men’s, which was her final college game.

Clark also helped the WNBA make history in just her third game as a professional, as the Fever’s matchup against the New York Liberty at Barclays Center generated more than $2 million in ticket revenue for the first time in league history.

The WNBA also generated $75 million in 2022 from an investor group that included Nike, Condoleezza Rice, Laurene Powell Jobs, and Michael Dell.

That funding has gone into marketing, ad campaigns, influencer marketing, and live events, which helped the league attract an average of 627,000 viewers per game to watch its games on ABC during the 2023 season, the most in more than a decade.

Former NBA commissioner and the late David Stern founded the WNBA in 1996, knowing that his vision would take a long time to come to fruition.

He wanted to “develop new fans, more programming, have arena content outside the NBA season, give more girls an incentive to play basketball.”

With Clark, Cameron Brink, Angel Reese, Nika Mühl, and other young stars entering the league with a big following, alongside current stars such as A’ja Wilson, Sabrina Ionescu, and Breanna Stewart, the hope is that this new generation will elevate the WNBA much like the legends of the NBA’s past did.