The WNBA has enjoyed another remarkable season, arguably the best in the league’s history. But according to former NFL star Ryan Clark, the real challenge is only just beginning. With growing fan interest, the star power of Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and others, and a championship series that showcased the league’s talent, Ryan Clark believes the WNBA must now find a way to turn recent success into sustained popularity.

“I think this year was the total win for the WNBA, and now you gotta capitalize on it,” Clark said on The Pivot, in a clip he shared on his X page. “Unfortunately, there’s only one organization in the world that is star-independent, and it’s the NFL… Every other sport needs superstars. You had a superstar in the championship, in Angel Reese. Period. Gabby Williams had an opportunity to now put her name on that marquee… Olivia Miles comes straight into the league and goes off. Caitlin [Clark] is rightfully who she said she was.”

For Ryan Clark, the WNBA has reached an important turning point. Watching the Finals, he was struck by the quality of the basketball, the physicality of the games, the growing celebrity presence, and the excitement around the championship. In his view, the league has gained considerable attention, particularly from people who may not have followed women’s basketball closely before.

That attention, however, is not guaranteed to last. The league has to build on the momentum rather than let it fade once the season ends, and it needs to do more than produce exciting basketball to hold the audience it has attracted. For Clark, one way to do that is to lean into its superstars and tell their stories. 

“So there are so many stories to tell. The WNBA gotta start storytelling them. The reason we love all these other sports is because we follow these dudes, man. You gotta story tell. Like, you gotta tell us where they come from. Tell us why they are who they are. Why they play the way that they do. Make people wanna watch these women hoop,” he added.

More specifically, Clark believes the league should be deliberate about promoting positive narratives, even as he acknowledged that negative ones cannot be avoided entirely. And that is not far from the truth. At different points this season, the WNBA was dominated by controversial storylines and off-court discourse that few would call positive.

But for Ryan Clark, some of the elements that might look negative on the surface, like the physical play and the trash talk he saw in the Finals, are things the league should actually embrace when promoting its product.

“Golden State wins in their second year. It’s exciting to watch them celebrate. The games were good. They were physical. It was a high level of skill, and the people who have become recent WNBA fans, like, they got to see that… It’s physical, it’s nasty, it’s crap-talking. Like, it was fun, dog. Like, it was good ball,” Clark said.

And the numbers back up his enthusiasm. The Finals averaged 1.88 million viewers, the most-watched WNBA Finals series since 1999. Game 7 averaged 3.3 million viewers, breaking the league’s 27-year-old all-time playoff viewership record, and became the most-watched WNBA game ever broadcast on cable, among other records.

The success also extends beyond the Finals. An astonishing 51 regular-season telecasts averaged at least one million viewers, compared with just 19 the previous year. The league also reached a record 90 million unique viewers over the regular season, among other milestones.

For Ryan Clark, the WNBA now has a responsibility to make that visibility count next season and beyond. His recommendations are simple: promote the league’s superstars, including Caitlin Clark, A’ja Wilson, and Angel Reese, among others; tell their stories and highlight their personal journeys; embrace the physicality and competitiveness; and consistently amplify the positive narratives around the league.

A season like this does not come often, and the next step is making sure it was a beginning rather than a peak.