Hours before the WNBA’s New York Liberty were set to take the court against the Connecticut Sky at 2 p.m. on Sunday, the crowd near the players’ entrance was already entrenched. Parents and their kids, couples, and groups of friends, many decked out in shirts and shoes with that distinctive Statue shade of teal.
The Liberty have a Dream Team this year with Brianna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu, Courtney Vandersloot, and Jonquel Jones among the starters. Brooklyn’s Barclays Center is draped with their faces and the slogan, “Light it Up.”
It was easy to see why there is so much optimism, as the Liberty built up a 19-point lead in front of nearly 8,000 fans over a team they’d beaten by a single point just a few days before. But in the fourth quarter, Kahleah Cooper (28 points) led a Chicago surge for an 86-82 Liberty loss.
“You guys say it’s the super team and it’s like, we ain’t so super. We didn’t label ourselves that,” said coach Sandy Brondello, who noted that the season was young and this Liberty team has time to change the narrative.
A one-hour drive to transverse 12 miles across Manhattan and through the Holland Tunnel, and Red Bull Arena rises across the transoms of New Jersey highway.
Gotham FC pulled a record crowd of 15,058 for a game against San Diego, with soccer star Alex Morgan on the San Diego Wave roster. It was pride night, with large rainbow flags waved from the stands and miniature ones for the kids, including former Giants quarterback Eli Manning in the front row.
Again, the home team lost, 1-0, but the game felt like a homecoming, and players, coaches, and VIPs lingered for an hour on the field after the game while hopeful fans carrying Sharpies and jerseys crowded the sides of the tunnel.
Two games, two losses. But that’s in the micro. The actual test for both of these teams is to build up recognition in the largest media market in the country as both the NWSL and the WNBA negotiate their next multi-year television deals at this pivotal moment in women’s professional sports.
The NWSL, WNBA negotiating TV deals
And in that game, both Gotham and the Liberty are winning.
“I think leading into the World Cup you can see the level and product that we can produce and put out on the field,” veteran US Women’s National Team and Gotham player Ali Krieger said. “And then hopefully that’ll just continue to grow after the World Cup when all the players come back and all the attention will be on this league and who players want to join.”
It’s a transformative moment for these two leagues, as investments multiply and ratings go up. Rennae Stubbs, former No.1 doubles player on the WTA tour and host of Amazon’s The Power Hour, also made that cross-town trek from one game to another and stood on the Gotham sideline after the game.
There have been surges for both the WNBA and women’s soccer in the last 30 years, but rarely sustained across markets. It was impossible not to sense, however, going from one venue to the other and seeing the crowds, the stars, and the celebrities in the stands, that this moment is different.
The broadcast market for women’s sports is in a moment of flux. Negotiations are underway as the WNBA’s deal is set to elapse in 2025. The current deal, according to Howard Megdal in Forbes, was for $33 million with ESPN, and the league just signed a deal with $39 million with ION for Friday night games. The NWSL’s $4.5 million deal with CBS is up this year. Ratings for women’s sports surged during the pandemic, when the WNBA and NWSL were two of the first bubble leagues to play.
The rights for NWSL and WNBA games are more valuable at the current moment than they were when the current deals were negotiated. Even as FIFA is locked in a standoff with European broadcasters used to the bargain-basement pricing for women’s World Cup rights. Still, brands are realizing the value of working with athletes and leagues on the women’s side, and the ceiling for those rights hasn’t been reached yet when, on the men’s side, value has likely been measured and maximized.
New York is important. There are other cities, like Portland and Seattle, that draw more fans to every game, but New York has… OK, everyone knows what New York has.
On Sunday, New York had actress and producer Issa Rae sitting courtside next to Liberty owner Clara Wu Tsai. Rae is the kind of star perfect for this crowd, young, creative, and wickedly funny, but Wu Tsai is a force. She’s a Stanford and Harvard-educated mogul who courted Breanna Stewart by joining Stewart, her wife, and her baby for a family cruise in Turkey. Wu Tsai and her husband, Joe Tsai, also co-own the Nets. The Kansas native knows her basketball.
So here we have arrived at a moment
These teams both play again Wednesday night, so could someone please coordinate schedules so they don’t make fans choose? There were 23,000 fans on Sunday who watched women’s professional sports in the greater New York market. Not everyone is as crazy as me and Stubbs to make it a doubleheader.
There was a lot of overlap in these crowds. Compared to other sports crowds these fans are younger and more diverse in every way that term intends. Women’s professional sports have found their fans, and they are doing it by bringing their whole selves to the playing field. Gotham goaltender Michelle Betos recounted the night she came out to her mom, “My mom said ‘I figured’ and then we ate dinner.”
Plenty of families were out for the night; Krieger’s wife and USWNT player Ashlyn Harris wore a design to celebrate, and Morgan had her young daughter with her after the game.
“I’m really proud of where we’re at and the next generation I think is going to be a beautiful thing,” Betos said.