WNBA agrees to 11-year media deal: How much will pro women’s basketball get for TV rights?

It seems that the bubble is far from bursting. The Women’s National Basketball Association has agreed a staggering $2.2 billion media deal that will see them receive an average of $200 million per season, according to sources who told Sports Business Journal.

The sources told SBJ of the lucrative new agreement, adding that the deal also comes “with an opening to earn more over that period”.

Disney, Ion, CBS and Amazon are the current WNBA media partners, although their deal, worth $50m per year, is set to expire in 2025, with the new plan set to introduce ESPN, NBC and Amazon as the new hosts of the product.

Each of the new broadcasters, according to the report, “will all have their own WNBA packages”.

What is the biggest media deal in US women’s sports?

There is huge room for growth with this new deal: not only will it “leave room for the WNBA to bring in new partners”, but it also leaves the door open for “two other rights packages in addition to the ones it has already made agreements for, and projects to bring in another”.

What’s more, there is also “an agreement between the league and the media partners to revisit the rights deals with good faith talks after three years that could reprice them to reflect the league’s growth”.

At the moment, the biggest media deal in women’s Sports goes to the NWSL, who agreed a $240 million four-year contract. If it comes off, the WNBA deal would simply blow this agreement out of the water and throw women’s Sports in the States into a new universe.

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The deal is expected to be announced ahead of the upcoming Paris 2024 Olympic Games. However, as reported by SportsPro Media, “any announcement could be scuppered by Warner Bros Discovery which, as an existing partner, has the right to match any offer accepted by the NBA from a rival”. According to Sportico, “the NBA’s board of governors approved the deals Tuesday, and Warner Bros. Discovery, as the incumbent deal-holder, now has five days to match for a rights package.”

But I thought nobody watched women’s sports?