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Even with millions of viewers checking in before WNBA Tip-Off ’25, the league warns fans it’s about to get real.
The WNBA and agency partner Wieden + Kennedy opened the 2025 season with a campaign that carries a disclaimer about offensive footage before shifting to court-level, unsteady, social-style clips of the league’s stars playing unapologetic ball.
In the new ad, the Minnesota Lynx’s Courtney Williams slices through the New York Liberty’s Breanna Stewart and Betnijah Laney-Hamilton to the hoop, and the Chicago Sky’s Angel Reese steals a pass in midair just before the Los Angeles Sparks’ Cameron Brink leaps about a hand’s length over a player to block a shot. Meanwhile, Myisha Hines-Allen of the Lynx (now with the Dallas Wings) levels the Liberty’s Leonie Fiebich with a near-perfect pick as a reminder that the 2024 WNBA Finals was a full series played with impunity.
Dubbed “Viewer Discretion,” the 30-second ad debuted at the WNBA Draft and is the first of a series of spots meant to spotlight the league’s athletes and share its action in a format that a passionate, growing fandom understands.
“How we captured that content and those shots all targeted a much younger audience and are reflective of how that younger audience consumes and shares content,” said Phil Cook, CMO of the WNBA. “To speak in their language, tonality, music is disruptive and distinctive in nature, and trying to set us apart from every other sports entertainment platform out there.”
Other installments will focus directly on the players themselves, with future ads featuring reigning WNBA Rookie of the Year Caitlin Clark of the Indiana Fever, reigning Defensive Player of the Year Napheesa Collier of the Minnesota Lynx, Breanna Stewart and Sabrina Ionescu from the 2024 WNBA champion New York Liberty, and second-year superstar Angel Reese from the Chicago Sky.
The league and Wieden + Kennedy previewed their player series digitally today, but make its broadcast debut during a May 17 doubleheader featuring the Las Vegas Aces at the New York Liberty and Chicago Sky at the Indiana Fever on ABC, ESPN+, and Disney+.
The first spot features last year’s most valuable player, a multi-time WNBA champion, and a player quickly entering the greatest-of-all-time discussion (her alma mater, South Carolina, already placed the statue)—the Aces’ A’ja Wilson. With her Nike A’One shoes selling out their first run in less than five minutes and a partnership with Chase centered more on investment than promotion, the WNBA’s ad emphasizes Wilson’s dominance on the court even as she becomes an even greater force off of it.
“She demonstrated and she’s recognized as the greatest player in our league coming off of last year, so let’s lead with our best,” Cook said. “The intent of this campaign is to find ways to tell the story and show attributes of our athletes in 30-second vignettes—to have a little bit of humor, a little bit of cheekiness to them, but personify and illustrate what makes them great.”
Jumping off
The WNBA is coming off a 2024 season in which an increasing number of fans became familiar with its players’ greatness. On ESPN alone, the average viewership of 1.2 million per game was 170% greater than in 2023 and the best for the league on ESPN platforms. The 3.4 million viewers who tuned into the WNBA All-Star game were the event’s biggest audience ever and 305% bigger than the crowd that tuned in the year before.
Some of that is the Caitlin Clark effect, but that doesn’t quite cover the 1.6 million average audience for the Finals between the Lynx and Liberty that didn’t feature Clark. That was more than double 2023, and was the biggest Finals viewership in 25 years.
Ion, meanwhile, saw its WNBA viewership numbers increase 133% from 2023 (including a 181% bump in male viewers), and seven games drew 1 million viewers or more. NBATV quadrupled its 2023 viewership, while the WNBA’s total attendance of more than 2.35 million jumped 48% within a year.
Going into the 2025 WNBA season, this year’s WNBA Draft and its 1.25 million viewers (including 1.45 million at its peak) was not only a 119% increase over 2023 for ESPN but was the second most-watched draft of all time behind Clark’s 2.4 million audience in 2024. Speaking of Clark, her return to her college stomping grounds in Iowa City to face the Brazilian national team during preseason drew 1.3 million viewers to ESPN.
“Our intent for our messaging is to continue to ensure our existing fans and our incoming fans are aware that our game is the best game of basketball in the world, and these are the best basketball athletes in the world, and their stories are some of the most compelling narratives that you’ll consume around,” Cook said. “Our broadcast partners and our general partners are also leaning into these stories and these athletes, who they are, and the audiences that they influence and attract.”
An expanding roster
As the WNBA’s audience has grown, so has its footprint and its sphere of influence. This year, the league welcomes its 13th team as the Golden State Valkyries make their debut in the Bay Area. Next season, the Toronto Tempo and yet-unbranded WNBA Portland team expand the league even further, just as its 11-year, reportedly $2.2 billion media rights deal with Amazon, ESPN, and NBCUniversal kicks in.
By 2027, Wasserman’s women-focused practice, The Collective, estimates that WNBA viewership will jump 32% from 2024 levels. That increased media and fan interest yields more brand interest, as Ion reported an influx of 20 new advertising partners last season alone. While Cook acknowledges the WNBA still lacks the access and reach of larger leagues with 30+ teams, the increasing demand for its broadcasts and franchises is making each WNBA Tip-Off campaign a step in the right direction.
“It’s making our job so much easier, because it’s unlocking access to our game that didn’t exist just a few years ago, [when] we were begging to get on some of these networks, and now, these networks are clamoring for our games,” Cook said. “Where it gets challenging is that everyone’s telling stories now about A’ja Wilson, Napheesa Collier, Sabrina Ionescu, Angel and Caitlin, so now I’m looking for access and windows and story narratives that aren’t repetitive and duplicative of what everyone else is telling. That’s a great problem to have. I’ll take that all day.”
