The WNBA’s 2024 sponsorship wins by the numbers

The GIST: The WNBA’s in its transformation era after a record-breaking season, but what does all this growth mean specifically for league sponsorship? Data platform Relo Metrics released a report this morning exploring how brands are thriving thanks to their women’s hoops investment. Vindication.

🐣 The 2024 rookie class fueled big numbers. Indiana Fever games accounted for 45% of total broadcast value, and one of the biggest benefactors of the Caitlin Clark effect was Gainbridge. The Fever’s stadium naming rights partner outpaced all other financial institutions in sponsor media value (SMV) despite having less logo exposure than the next closest naming rights sponsor, Barclays.

• What’s more, of the WNBA’s 13.6M mentions across all digital channels (up 571% YoY), 35% included one of seven marquee players in this season’s rookie class — Clark, the Chicago Sky’s Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardosa, Washington Mystic Aaliyah Edwards, LA Sparks Cameron Brink and Rickea Jackson, and Las Vegas Ace Kate Martin. The kids are alright.

💪 It was a record-setting 2024 for the WNBA’s SMV. The league drove $136M in SMV during the regular season, led by Nike’s $31.2M. Though the sneaker giant topped the charts, the average SMV for partners excluding Nike was $4M as AT&T ($12M) and Michelob Ultra ($9.3M) rounded out the W’s sponsorship podium.

🏀 The league matched NBA viewership but surpassed the NBA’s engagement. Over the course of the WNBA’s 2024 season, the league showed comparable viewership to the NBA’s 2023-2024 season through the first 11 weeks of action. Notably, the W outperformed the NBA in Week 6 viewership due in part to the 2.1M viewers who watched the Sky host the Fever in June.

• Plus, WNBA fans engaged with team-owned content more frequently than their NBA counterparts: The W averages 272.24 engagements per 1K followers compared to the NBA’s 17.07, meaning it boasts both quality and quantity in its fandom — any brand’s dream duo.