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The WNBA had a challenge coming into this season. Last year was historic, with highs in ratings and attendance. Could that continue, or was that turnout just a blip? With the league's all-Star weekend underway, NPR's Becky Sullivan went to see how it's going.
BECKY SULLIVAN, BYLINE: The Indianapolis Fieldhouse was packed last night for the 3-point contest. I talked to people who flew in from Minneapolis and California and drove in from Ohio and Chicago, and a lot of these thousands of fans have dialed in over just these last two years. James Rivers (ph) and his 15-year-old son, also James, live here in Indianapolis, but they thought seeing Friday's action and then tonight's All-Star game here at home would be a special occasion.
JAMES RIVERS: We booked it - booked hotel rooms. We did it just like we were out-of-towners. Just - the game is just elevated for the ladies, period.
SULLIVAN: They're all part of this rapid and meteoric rise in popularity for the WNBA. Take the fan vote for the All-Star game as an example. Two years ago, Las Vegas Aces star A'ja Wilson got about 96,000 votes, more than any other player. And second year Indiana Fever superstar Caitlin Clark, who won the vote, got nearly 1.3 million ballots.
In other words, we're halfway through the season, and it's now clear that last year's boom wasn't a one-off, says, WNBA chief marketing officer Phil Cook.
PHIL COOK: I'd be remiss to say that we knew this was going to happen to this scale. We knew big things were coming. We didn't know the speed at which they were going to come or the level, but we were ready for whatever came our way.
SULLIVAN: Now it's paying off. Viewership is up 23% over last year. Overall attendance is up 26%. And the league recently announced an ambitious plan to add three new teams in Cleveland, Detroit and Philadelphia in the coming years.
COOK: We knew how great the game was. We knew how amazing the athletes were. We knew it was the best basketball in the world. And we just needed to unlock access to a fan base that didn't yet recognize or see that.
SULLIVAN: Not everybody in the basketball business was always a believer, says Cheryl Reeve. She's the head coach of the Minnesota Lynx. Her career in the league got started back in 2001.
CHERYL REEVE: There's been this long sort of undertone that, yeah, the WNBA's nice and everything, but it'll never become mainstream. I was told that. I was told that, you know, 10 years ago. And I think that sort of undertone put us in position that maybe when it was time to capitalize, that we missed on some things for sure.
SULLIVAN: Reeve didn't give an example, but here's one I'll give. It used to be a common assumption that WNBA teams weren't capable of filling full-size arenas. So even as the league's average attendance now tops 11,000 fans per game, some teams are locked into home arenas that only seat three or 4,000.
REEVE: You know, some of those same people are going, oh, oh, there's money in it now. And so, you know, that's the nature of women in business, women in sport, women in politics. It's all the nature of it.
SULLIVAN: Now the WNBA is raking in expansion fees of $250 million per team. There's also the new $2.2 billion media rights deal that's set to begin next year, plus a parade of new high-end brand partners, like Coach and Bumble and Ally Bank. That's a lot of new money flowing in, and now the players want a bigger piece of it. Here's Breanna Stewart, a forward for the New York Liberty who's the vice president of the players' union.
BREANNA STEWART: Knowing the numbers and what we're hearing about how much it costs to buy in and to be a part of this league, like, it's kind of, like, all right, if this is the asking price and this is the TV deal, then make it makes sense on the other side as well.
SULLIVAN: The WNBA's minimum salary this year is about $66,000. Those low salaries and how much of the revenue to share with players are two of the biggest sticking points in negotiations over a new collective bargaining agreement that are happening now. Some things have already gotten better, says Kayla McBride of the Minnesota Lynx, who first joined the league back in 2014.
KAYLA MCBRIDE: We were staying in Holiday Inn Expresses, and now we're staying in all the Four Seasons everywhere we go. And so I think it's just changed so much.
SULLIVAN: But there's more progress to make, she says. She thinks what they're asking for is deserved, based on what they're doing on the court.
MCBRIDE: We're asking for all these things in our CBA, and we're expanding, we're doing all these amazing things, but we're also putting on. We're also hooping. And I think that that's, like, been the best part, just to see, like, that our game is, like, backing up what we're asking for and what we're looking for. And all the hype is real.
SULLIVAN: The union contract expires at the end of October. By then, if this pace keeps up, nearly 2 million more fans will have come to see her and her fellow players on the court.
Becky Sullivan, NPR News.
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