Hitting like never before

The GIST: On Monday, ticket resale marketplace StubHub announced a multiyear partnership with the Chicago Sky, marking the first deal of its kind in the WNBA. This isn’t just a win for fans looking for alternative ticket platforms — we’ve seen sports clubs’ ticketing partnerships offer valuable benefits for all parties. Let’s lock in.

The landscape: Today, ticketing platforms are able to comprehensively aggregate demographic and engagement data from fans. Ticketmaster, for example, just released a report highlighting the growth of basketball fandom among Gen Z and women fans. Among Gen Z women fans, 71% say women’s basketball is their fave sport — that’s valuable knowledge for a team like the Sky.

• Others, like SeatGeek, are getting creative beyond just offering data points. The ticket platform introduced “Game Day Your Way,” a unique IRL activation piloted at Rocket Arena during the NBA’s Cleveland Cavaliers’ playoff run.

• The brand was able to connect a fan’s ticketing, entry, concessions, and payment experiences throughout gameday into one system, allowing teams to gain insights from fan behavior across the entire night.

The benefits: StubHub’s 2026 Chicago Sky data indicate 71% of buyers are first-time WNBA purchasers, and 40% of buyers are from outside Illinois. These numbers allow the Sky to better understand its fanbase, which can guide the team in the amenities it provides. For example, all those out-of-towners could make the case for beefing up its hospitality partnerships.

• In 2025, the NC Courage became the first NWSL team to partner with ticketing platform Jump. The company found that only 6% of fans were returning to games, but after those initial learnings, the Courage has since upped its return rate to 34%.

Zooming out: Understanding fans is big business — that’s why Genius Sports acquired Sports Innovation Lab last year — and everyone is increasingly recognizing the value of women’s sports fans. But who exactly are they? Sometimes, the answers are surprising: The Dallas Wings and Golden State Valkyries have noted a growing male fanbase.

• A ticketing partnership streamlines access to who attends games, and that data is invaluable to teams. This deal will also directly benefit StubHub as it looks to build out HerSportsHub, its new ticketing platform dedicated to women’s sports. Someone’s got to meet the need.

The GIST: Major League Volleyball (MLV) wrapped its inaugural “Match For A Million” championship on May 9th in front of a sold-out crowd of over 4.5K in Dallas. However, the league has been drawing a much bigger crowd all season long — after reorganizing and rebranding, media rights deals and a strong social push (featuring yours truly) brought volleyball to many more households.

• Let’s review the numbers and what they mean for MLV’s future, as well as the volleyball landscape as a whole. Absolutely killin’ it.

📺 This was the first year postseason and championship games were broadcast across Ion and Scripps Sports. These telecasts reached nearly 3M unique viewers across three matches, with the title game peaking at more than 300K viewers and averaging 200K.

📈 Matches carried on the newly launched Scripps Sports Network FAST channel drove an additional 28% lift in audience consumption.

📱 In the week leading up to the championship, the league generated 8.9M social impressions (a 63% jump YoY) and over 2M video views. This was a nearly 20x increase from the 97K video views in the 2025 postseason.

🤳 Creator collaborations further elevated content to reach new fans. Volleyball star and influencer Jordan Lucas, who was on site to cover the championship, generated 1.7M impressions throughout his coverage of the game.

🏐 Volleyball consumption is growing both at the collegiate and professional level, with more opportunities to watch than ever. These stats drive home what will help emerging volleyball properties stand out: Media partnerships that help them reach broad audiences.

• The GIST was one of the creators amplifying the MLV championship on social media, and scoring a deal with Scripps Sports is a major get for MLV as it gets bigger. Smashing.