The Indiana Fever, the team that snagged superstar Caitlin Clark in last year’s WNBA draft, launched a very dramatic new ad campaign ahead of the 2025 season, which begins Friday night.
One of the players strolls onto the court in heels and a bright red pants suit. The ad includes the phrase “now you know” — and that’s the Fever’s message to all the new fans who started tuning in during last year’s blockbuster season.
“The onus is on the WNBA marketers and their partners to not only capture the momentum but elevate it,” said Ketra Armstrong, a professor of sport management at the University of Michigan (and, full disclosure, a long time WNBA fan).
And boy did the WNBA have momentum last season: Attendance was up 48% over 2023, average viewership for nationally televised games was the highest since the ‘90s, and ad and merchandise sales skyrocketed, too.
Armstrong has never seen so much mainstream hype around women’s basketball.
“What do they call it? FOMO? The fear of missing out? There’s some people who will tune in just to see what the noise is all about,” she said.
This year, Armstrong said WNBA marketing will try to get more of those curious onlookers invested in team rivalries and monetize player personalities.
“The WNBA has done a really great job of allowing their players to be influencers,” said Ceyda Mumcu, an expert in sports marketing at the University of New Haven.
“They are giving them voice, they are highlighting them” in flashy new ad campaigns and on social media, she said.
Plus, Mumcu said that a new WNBA team launching in San Francisco the first in 17 years brings some intrigue.
But, like every other business competing for consumers’ nonessential spending, the WNBA is facing some headwinds.
“It’s always a worry. You know, macroeconomic conditions and especially discretionary income,” said Pete Giorgio, Deloitte’s global sports lead.
He said this is where women’s sports might have an edge over men’s — market research shows us that fans of women’s sports, “they’re more loyal, they tend to be more values-based,” he said.
So, Giorgio said they’re likely to keep buying tickets and merchandise, even as they pull back on other discretionary spending.
That’s what Carley Knox with the Minnesota Lynx’s front office is seeing.
“All of the revenue lines are absolutely historic for us,” she said.
Corporate partnerships, as well as season ticket and merch sales are all trending to break records, she added — even before the 2025 season has officially tipped off.
