Is the WNBA going to be financially sustainable? Well, that depends on who you ask. A September 2025 report from ‘Sports Business Journal’ claimed that total revenue projections are set to hit $1B in 2025. A few months ago, however, numerous publications reported that the league still faces yearly losses of $40–50 million! The league games have seldom been more popular, with the 2025 WNBA season setting records for attendance even before the postseason began.

This increase in the viewership rate, attendance, and revenue has only pushed the players to stand united and demand salaries that reflect their worth. However, the WNBA is not yet at the level of the major leagues that generate 50 times as much revenue. Furthermore, from the looks of things, they won’t even reach close for years and years to come. Why? Well, read on to find out.

Revenue Reality Check

Even before the ‘Caitlin Clark effect’ came into play, women’s sports were seeing a surge in popularity. The league’s revenue doubled from $102 million to $200 million between 2019 and 2023. This was credited to the attendance growing by 29% from 2023 to 2024. A significant jump from the 16% growth from 2022 to 2023.

According to ‘The Guardian’, the WNBA is set to benefit significantly thanks to the NBA’s 11-year, $76 billion media rights deal that was agreed upon back in July 2024. The WNBA’s current media deals only brought in $50 million a year. This new agreement, however, would quadruple that amount to $200 million a year, for 11 years. It will also include room for further income from other broadcast partners.

Television deals aren’t the only place from which the women’s basketball league is benefiting. As highlighted by the intelligence platform ‘SportsUnited’, the 12 teams of the WNBA brought in a record $76 million in sponsorship revenue during the 2024 season. As expected, Caitlin Clark’s Indiana Fever leads the league in the volume of deals possessed, boasting a total of 92 brand partnerships. The average number of deals per team rose by 52% since 2022, with new clients like Ally Financial, Coach, Booking.com, Emirates, and Evernorth joining over the course of time. ‘Homage’, the apparel brand that holds a series of WNBA-related merchandise, saw its WNBA product sales jump 900% in early 2024. By May 2025, the sales of WNBA-related products were double what they were a year before.

The Loss Column

Despite all the big numbers the WNBA was projected to get in revenue for 2024, the league still fell behind. After all, reports revealed that the league lost $40 million overall last year. There is some optimism, since the $40 million was an improvement from the $50 million that was initially projected to be the amount lost on the investment. Nevertheless, a loss is a loss.

While revenue has gone up, so have the expenses. Amongst them is a $25 million per year commitment to fly teams by charter planes rather than on regular flights. In addition to that, the WNBA salary cap has also risen from $622,000 in 2003 to $1.5 million in 2025. That number might not seem like a lot, but it is important to remember that there were 14 teams back in 2003. One less team now also affects the total cost of player pay from a maximum of $15.4m to $19.5m.

The Big Swing: Media Rights Deal

The 11-year, $76 billion NBA agreement is set to bring in partners like ESPN/ABC, NBC, and Amazon Prime Video. This would increase as fans would get a variety of choices to stream games from.

Directly, the increased revenue has the potential to give WNBA athletes what they have been desiring for a long time: increased pay. According to reports, the WNBA players’ median salary of $78,000 is just 2% of their NBA counterparts. Caitlin Clark, who was selected 1st overall in the 2024 WNBA Draft, currently plays under a 4-year, $338,056 contract. This means she averages about $84,514 a year. In comparison, Ariel Hukporti, the 58th pick at the 2024 NBA Draft, signed a 2-year, $5.745 million contract, making his average pay $2,872,666 a year. Unfortunately, since the TV deal will only start for the WNBA from next season, the league will continue losing money.

Projections vs. Reality

Deloitte reports that the revenues of Women’s elite sports are set to surpass $2.35 billion in 2025. These updated figures and projections have been given out based on matchday attendance, broadcast viewership, and earnings from commercial enterprises. Basketball ($1.03 billion or 44%) and football ($820 million or 35%) were projected to generate the biggest revenues in 2025.

From what we saw, however, that is far from reality. After all, 2024 reported a $200 million gain in revenue while, simultaneously, there was a $40 million loss last year.

In a way, highlighting the billion-dollar worth projections highlights a significant hope for the future, what with the new media rights deal. However, as an NBA team executive told the New York Post: “The WNBA owes the NBA so much we won’t see any windfall for years.”

Who’s Carrying the Costs? Several people have called the WNBA a ‘subsidy’ of the NBA, given that the WNBA still relies on subsidies from the NBA to cover operating costs. WNBA team owners possess only 42% of the league. Meanwhile, the NBA owns another 42%, and the remaining 16% belongs to investors from a $75 million capital raise in 2022. Since 6 of the women’s league’s 14 franchises are owned by NBA team owners, they control more than 60% of the WNBA. Therefore, any losses by the women’s league are covered by the NBA representatives. Since the NBA made $11.3 billion in revenue during the 2023–2024 season, they have no trouble covering the losses.

What to Watch Next

Success is a story of patience. Even the NBA was not profitable at first, and didn’t take off financially until after it merged with the ABA in 1976. 15 of the first 23 franchises went out of business, and 6 of the 8 surviving teams had to move to another city. Television ratings were not good either.

The WNBA does not suffer from the disadvantages that starting a league in the 1970s did. However, year by year, it is growing. The revenue for each of the 12 teams that played in the 2024 season totaled a whopping $226 million, according to Forbes. Furthermore, the league’s newest team, the Golden State Valkyries, is set to earn more than $70 million in revenue in 2025.

For the first time in a long time, there is hope that the WNBA can become profitable. If it’s not there right now doesn’t mean it won’t be in the coming years. The projections do not highlight the current reality, but what the situation could be if the growth continues at the current pace. Therefore, the hidden story isn’t just about money — it’s about whether the league can transform from a subsidized growth project into a self-sustaining business. In time, all the jokes that Family Guy did about the WNBA being obsolete will be the obsolete ones.