The WNBA is right where it’s supposed to be on its 25th anniversary

The WNBA is ahead of where the NBA was in its 25th season

Saturday is officially the WNBA’s 25th birthday. The NBA’s board of governors approved the concept of a women’s professional basketball league. And on its 25th anniversary, the league looks stronger than ever before.

The W has hit so many milestones on its way here like its new collective bargaining agreement with the league in 2020. The league also expanded its broadcast reach a few years back in a new deal with CBS.

There’s plenty more room to grow for the game, but the strides it has already made have been pretty incredible.

For a bit of perspective, here’s a note from Wages of Wins’ David Berri on where the NBA was after 25 seasons in 1971. They’d just signed a new television deal that paid $5.5 million to the entire league with just 7,648 fans per game.

Of course, we have to adjust that number for inflation. That $5.5 million isn’t the same in 2021 as it is in 1971. So let’s do it.

Using this U.S. inflation calculator, that same deal the NBA signed in 1971 would be worth about $36 million today. Now take that number and compare it to the WNBA’s most recent television deal.

They signed a 10-year deal for $12 million per season annually. In 2016, that number doubled to $25 million as part of a performance clause in the agreement, per Front Office Sports. And that was before the network decided to add more WNBA games to its slate.

There’s lots of context in between all of these numbers. But the overarching point still stands.

Any concerns that anyone might share about the WNBA and its inability to make money are misguided. The league is commonly compared to the present day NBA, which has been around for half a century longer.

If you compare it to what the NBA used to be? You can clearly see that it’s right on schedule — maybe even a bit ahead.

And it’s only going up from here.

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