After the WNBA Finals wrapped up on Oct. 20 with a thrilling 5-game series featuring the Minnesota Lynx and the New York Liberty in a “winner-take all” Game 5 (the Liberty won 67-62), it was counted up to be the most viewed WNBA game in 25 years, reaching an average of 3.3 million viewers — a 142% increase from last year’s Las Vegas Aces and Liberty Finals matchup.
Ending a remarkable 2023-2024 season, the WNBA has broken dozens of streaming records including averaging 1.19 million viewers per game — a 170% increase from last year.
A major factor in this spike in viewership came with the star player in the 2023-24 season draft class, Iowa’s Caitlin Clark. Clark’s 3-point shooting ability gained her huge exposure in her college career, and her popularity has only increased since she was drafted as the first overall pick to the Indiana Fever.
Additionally, other top picks of the 2024 draft — namely Angel Reese, Cameron Brink and Kamilla Cardoso — added more interest to the league as they were already star players in college as well. Reese, in particular, was a leading force on the Chicago Sky in only her first season, leading the league in rebounds per game with 13.1 and achieving a total of 446 rebounds this season, beating last year’s WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson.
As league viewership is beginning to grow, the WNBA is expanding from the current 12 teams to the Bay Area for the 2024-25 season, with the addition of the Golden State Valkyries as the 13th team to the league. The Valkyries will be playing at the Chase Center, home of the NBA team the Golden State Warriors, and they are owned by Warriors owners Joe Lacob and Peter Gruber. In close relation, the Warriors often wear merch to help represent and promote the Valkyries while their season is currently happening.
As an area with high interest in women’s basketball, with local schools like Archbishop Mitty going to the state championship and the Stanford Women’s team seeing success in past key players like Cameron Brink, this addition will be a great opportunity for the league to gain tens of thousands of dedicated fans.
The expansion draft — the draft that new teams in a league conduct in order to build their roster — will add an extra layer of uncertainty to the WNBA as teams will only be able to “lock in” a maximum of six players on their team that are not applicable to be drafted by Golden State. This could mean that a deep roster of high-caliber players could make up the new team next season.
Additionally, the Valkyries are breaking barriers and making waves by hiring Natalie Nakase as the first female Asian American head coach in league history. Nakase is an experienced member of the basketball community who played on the UCLA women’s basketball team and made her way into the NBA as an assistant for the Los Angeles Clippers in 2017 and the WNBA as an assistant coach for the Las Vegas Aces from 2022-2024.
The Valkyries, although early in their development, will be a team to look out for in the future because of the lethal power that the nature of an expansion draft can bring.
The WNBA has just started to kick off some of its most formative years in terms of expansion and exposure, and now that the Bay has a local team, the interest, presence and fanbase will continue to grow. By May 2025, basketball fans in the Bay will be able to watch a Valkyries game at the Chase Center.