The WNBA is turning eyeballs into brand dollars

This WNBA postseason looks a little different than it has in past years.

Perhaps most noticeably, the stands are packed with fans.

This year’s playoffs, which tipped off late last month, are already breaking viewership records, and brands are packing into the W’s arenas and broadcasts, too: The league has signed eight new partners since the end of the 2023 season.

“We’ve definitely seen the tide turn when it comes to supply and demand,” Colie Edison, chief growth officer at the WNBA, told Marketing Brew. “The demand to be involved with the league, from a sponsorship standpoint, really has never been higher.”

Amid that demand, though, the W isn’t saying yes to every brand that comes knocking: Edison said her team looks to work with sponsors that are open to long-term deals, as well as ones that have similar values as the W and are looking to help continue the growth of women’s sports, while also seeing business results themselves.

“If you’re just looking to do a logo slap, you’re probably not the right partner for the WNBA,” she said. “We really don’t have space for partners who just want to come in and maybe ride the wave because they think it’s trendy.”

No rookie mistake

This year’s rookie class, which includes Rookie of the Year Caitlin Clark of the Indiana Fever and Angel Reese of the Chicago Sky, has been particularly adept at helping bring in new fans and sponsors, including brands that haven’t traditionally done much sports marketing, Edison said. And like the players who had to be selected for their teams, those sponsors had to be hand-picked to join the league.

In July, dating and networking app Bumble announced a multi-year partnership with the W, which it followed up by signing a deal with the New York Liberty in August. Bumble CMO Selby Drummond said the company’s involvement with women’s basketball is “not just about brand alignment.” As part of the league deal, Bumble has held date-night ticket giveaways, the first of which became one of the most engaged-with in-app promotions the company has ever run, she said.

“This goes all the way to how our community wants to interact, and how our members actually want to date and find each other and connect in person,” Drummond said.

Delta also struck up a partnership with the league beyond, providing charter flights for its teams, and was named the official airline of the W in August. The partnership is centered on connecting with consumers through sports as well as supporting the growth of the league, CMO Alicia Tillman said.

“We know, given the visibility of the Delta brand and the strength of the Delta brand, us partnering [with] the WNBA is going to help entice more partners,” Tillman said. And since Delta has a significant number of women customers and customers who are already WNBA fans, tying up with the league is also “good business for us,” she said.

Half-court shot

For the W, the end of the 2022 season was something of a turning point for brand partnerships, Edison said, since that was “really the beginning of household names being created,” and on-court rivalries and quality of play heating up, with more triple-doubles, more double-doubles, and more games crossing the 100-point mark.

Some brands took note and tried to get in before an even bigger rise in popularity. Hair-care and beauty brand Mielle signed a multi-year deal with the league in 2023, the same year it struck up an NIL ambassadorship with Reese, in an effort to get in on the action before it took off even more, President Omar Goff said.

“I’ve never seen fandemonium like I’ve seen in the W; they’re very passionate about the players, passionate about the stories,” Goff said. “It was a way for us to showcase ourselves and be seen in front of a new audience for the brand.”

Sponsorship prices in the W have been on the rise, especially since the league’s recent $2.2 billion, 11-year media rights deal, according to Edison, and the landscape is only getting more competitive. Still, there are “opportunities for brands to be involved at every level,” she added.

Wilson Sporting Goods has a long history with women’s basketball, dating back to the first pro league in the US in the late ’70s and early ’80s, before it became the official ball of the W in 2021. Since then, it has been doubling down on its product creation and brand storytelling around the W and women’s sports, David Picioski, head of global brand partnerships and collaborations, said.

The brand has started to create about as much product tied to the W as it does for the NBA, according to Picioski, and that has proven successful so far: Since Wilson announced a partnership with Clark in May, it’s dropped three different basketballs with her, all of which have sold out within about an hour, he said.

Stay awhile

For brands that have been working with the W for longer—like those involved in the WNBA Changemakers program, a group of brands that are committed to elevating the league beyond a financial commitment—the payoff has been measurable.

At AT&T, an inaugural Changemaker, its association with women’s sports properties like the W has resulted in a “10 percentage-point lift on average” in brand metrics like consideration compared to other kinds of sponsorships, according to Sabina Ahmed, assistant VP of sponsorships and experiential. This season’s metrics haven’t yet come in, but Ahmed said she expects to see an even higher lift this year.

“The more people that tune in to watch these incredible, exciting games, the more association it creates with our brand,” she said.

CarMax, a WNBA partner since 2020 and a Changemaker since last year, has seen a 20% higher lift in brand affinity among WNBA fans compared to NBA fans, CMO Sarah Lane said. (Plus, the brand is getting more bang for its buck these days, she said, since it’s locked into a contract that it signed when viewership was lower.)

Kate Johnson, director of global sports, media, and entertainment marketing at Google, the presenting sponsor of this year’s playoffs, had a sense since the brand joined Changemakers in 2021 that its investment might pay off in the long run, too. “I just was like, ‘Here’s a league that you cannot lose on,’” she said. Still, Johnson said she didn’t anticipate just how much the profile of women’s basketball would rise.

“We knew it was a growth opportunity,” she said. “That it finally has happened in the way that it has, I don't think I could have written it any better.”

As more brands join the league, it naturally can become more challenging for sponsors to stand out, but that’s a reality that some of them are willing to accept.

“We’re getting the benefits of all the extra viewership, even if it is a little bit more cluttered,” Lane said. “We’re thrilled to have more brands join the party.”