During the 2022 WNBA season, the Indiana Fever averaged 1,776 fans per game and finished with a 5-31 record. It was the third straight season with six or fewer wins, a low point for the club owned for more than 20 years by Herb Simon, who had often been counseled to sell or fold the team.
Those days are over. The Fever averaged more than 17,000 fans per game last year, nearly 10x that 2022 season. The tally was better than six NBA teams this season and three MLB teams in 2024. Fever gameday merchandise sales per person were higher than any NBA team, according to a person familiar with the details who requested anonymity because the details are private.
Sportico estimates Indiana generated $34 million in revenue last season—a nearly 300% jump—and should increase another 30% this year before any potential playoff bump.
Indiana is ground zero for the growth of the WNBA, thanks to the arrival of Caitlin Clark as the No. 1 draft pick in 2024. However, metrics are soaring across the league, with TV ratings, merchandise sales, attendance and revenue all on a meteoric rise. And next year kicks off the league’s new media deals, which are expected to generate $260 million in annual revenue.
Team values gains have outstripped all of those growth metrics.
The average WNBA team is worth $269 million, by Sportico’s count, based on conversations over the past month with more than 30 people involved with the league, including bankers, lawyers, investors, consultants, team executives and owners. It is a 180% increase compared to 2024, which is more than double the previous biggest year-over-year gain for a major sports league—that happened when Steve Ballmer bought the Los Angeles Clippers in 2014 and drove NBA prices higher across the board.
The WNBA teams are collectively worth $3.5 billion, including real estate and assets related to the franchises, such as practice facilities. The valuations are based on “control” transactions, where the new owner takes charge of the franchise, versus an LP sale (here is a detailed methodology).
The Fever had the biggest one-year value gain at 273%, ranking third overall with a $335 million valuation. The defending champion New York Liberty are second at $420 million, with the second-largest gain of 222%.
Meanwhile, the WNBA’s most valuable team has only played 13 games in its franchise’s history.
WNBA’s Golden Team
In October 2023, the Golden State Warriors agreed to pay a then-record $50 million expansion fee to bring a WNBA team to the Bay Area, the first W expansion team since the Atlanta Dream started play in 2008. WNBA executives had long coveted a Bay Area team aligned with the NBA’s most valuable team, at $9.14 billion, per Sportico’s NBA valuations in December. Now we see why, as the Golden State Valkyries have set a new bar for the league.
Last month, the club tipped off its first regular-season game at Chase Center, which set a record for a single-game WNBA ticket revenue at more than $3 million, and the club already has another $3 million gate on its books. The Valkyries are selling courtside seats for an average of $1,500 per game, comparable to some NBA teams. Total 2025 revenue should hit $70 million, double what any WNBA club generated last year, and more than half of the teams in MLS. Sportico estimates the club is worth $500 million—No. 1 in the W. It is arguably conservative, at seven times revenue.
The Warriors and Chase Center provided the engine to launch the Valkyries, which boast a 7-6 record through 30% of the season, with a bang on the business side. Roughly half of the 20-plus Valkyries sponsors to start the season were also Warriors partners, including JPMorganChase, Kaiser Permanente, Rakuten and United Airlines.
Yet, Valkyries’ president Jess Smith and her team have built a standalone business, bringing in sponsors such as Sephora and Olly. The ticketing picture starkly shows the untapped market the Valkyries have reached. They became the first team to ever sell 10,000 season tickets, and only 4% of those ticket-holders also have Warriors season tickets. The first seven home games sold out at 18,064 fans per game.
“This community has shown up, and then some, to create this milestone,” Smith told Sportico in March on the ticketing record. “This is something that we knew was possible and really just signifies the beginning of our journey in a way that will set a trajectory for the WNBA moving forward.”
The Valkyries’ swift rise helped spur a rebrand last month for the team’s parent company from GSW Sports to Golden State, with updated names for the retail shops, app, foundation and basketball camps—these were previously all Warriors-branded, and now they reflect Golden State.
Warriors owners Joe Lacob and Peter Guber had been thinking about adding a W team for a while, but they wanted to get the Warriors established on the court, Chase Center built and their mixed-use development, Thrive City, rolling. When Chase Center opened in 2019, there was a carveout in the suite contracts in case a WNBA team was added that would require additional payments. It has made for a seven-figure line item on the Valkyries’ income statement.
Lacob and Guber bought the Warriors in 2010 for $450 million, and it took nine years for the franchise value to rise 1,000%. For the Valkyries, it was less than two years.
W Team Sales
It has been four years since a standalone WNBA team was sold, with the Las Vegas Aces and Atlanta Dream both trading hands in 2021. Mark Davis paid $2 million for Vegas, while Atlanta cost in the high seven figures for the group led by Larry Gottesdiener. In 2019, James Dolan sold the Liberty to Joe Tsai and Clara Wu Tsai for just over $10 million, ending a two-year odyssey to find a new owner. The Phoenix Mercury (2023) and Minnesota Lynx (2021) both sold as part of NBA deals, but the WNBA clubs were given little consideration by bidders at the time.
The landscape has since changed dramatically since those deals. Investors are flocking to the league, despite the soaring prices, which has enabled teams to sell stakes at a premium to what a control price would be, according to bankers.
Last year, Dallas Wings CEO and minority owner Greg Bibb sold a 1% stake in the club at a $208 million valuation. In May, the Tsais sold a limited partnership stake in the club at a $450 million valuation to a group that included Alibaba co-founder Jack Ma and supermodel Karlie Kloss. Owners of the Seattle Storm recently sold roughly 1.5% of the team at a $325 million valuation—in comparison, the club raised $21 million at a $130 million valuation, or $151 million post-money valuation, in early 2024 to help fund a $64 million practice facility. Sportico values the Storm at $285 million, fifth in the NBA.
On the expansion front, the Toronto Tempo and the Portland franchise will start play next year. Toronto paid a $50 million fee, while Portland cost $75 million, with startup costs and a new practice facility pushing the total price tag to $125 million—Toronto committed $115 million.
Like Golden State, these two clubs both have close ties to the NBA. Toronto is owned by Larry Tanenbaum, the longtime chairman of the NBA board of governors; Tanenbaum’s Kilmer Sports owns 25% of the Toronto Raptors. Portland is owned by siblings Lisa Bhathal Merage and Alex Bhathal, who are LPs in the Sacramento Kings.
NBA owners will be at the front of the line for the next round of WNBA expansion teams. In September, the WNBA enlisted Allen & Company to run the expansion process for a 16th franchise. The New York-based boutique investment bank served as the league’s financial advisor when it raised $75 million in strategic capital in 2022.
More than 10 cities made bids, including Austin, Denver, Detroit, Kansas City, Nashville and Philadelphia. The overwhelming interest and attractive bidders have the WNBA considering granting multiple cities teams. Cleveland is likely at the front of the line after agreeing to a $250 million expansion fee before any startup or other costs.
Bankers and investors traditionally use revenue multiples to value sports teams, and WNBA has moved to the top of the table among major sports leagues at 12 times 2024 revenue, using a hypothetical Valkyries 2024 figure. Among the five major North American sports leagues, the NBA is next at 11.9, followed by MLS (9.4), NFL (9.3), NHL (7.7) and MLB (6.6). NWSL is 6.8.
What’s Next
For nearly 25 years, the WNBA was a league where owners stomached annual losses with minimal revenue growth, and capital investments were rare. That mindset is gone—owners are sinking money into the franchises, which is critical as the players negotiate their new CBA. The teams that need upgrades, facilities-wise or other, will also face significantly increased player costs under a new CBA, with the current one set to expire Oct. 31.
Golden State, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Seattle have all opened new or renovated training facilities. Chicago, Indiana and New York have announced plans for their own practice facilities. Atlanta plays in the league’s smallest arena, the 3,000-seat Gateway Center Arena, and is exploring its options.
“We know we have to build,” Morgan Shaw Parker, Dream president, said in a phone interview. “We have been working on the infrastructure part of the team for a couple of years.” In addition to a practice facility, she envisions a new building that would seat 12,000 to 14,000 fans.
Last month, the owners of the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun hired Allen & Co to explore a sale of the franchise. Interest has been heavy in the club currently owned by the Mohegan Tribe, and most bankers view the club as more valuable in a major city versus playing at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Conn.
WNBA prices might seem rich, particularly in light of seven-figure team sales four years ago, but the WNBA almost certainly will increase revenue faster than any other major sports league in the near term. And the supply and demand curve has unprecedentedly pushed the price of every franchise up more than 100% over the last 12 months; even Atlanta, at the bottom of the list with a $165 million valuation, is up 203%.
The 12 WNBA teams in 2024 generated an estimated $243 million in revenue last year, up 53%, with a range of $11.9 million (Atlanta) to $33.8 million (Indiana), including playoffs and a roughly $2.5 million check from the league for central revenue from media and sponsorship deals. Not all central revenue trickles down to the clubs, as NBA owners own 42% of the league, and the 2022 investment consortium owns 16%. The revenue distribution formula sends more than 42% of the pie to W teams.
Ticket revenue got a huge boost last year, with Clark as the driving force. The WNBA had its highest attendance in 22 years at 2.35 million fans, up 48% from 2023. The league’s 154 sellouts marked a 242% increase. Ticket revenue more than doubled for a few teams and was up an estimated 5x for the Fever. W attendance is up again this year, despite significant price increases in many markets. The season schedule is also 10% longer, providing each team with an additional two home games.
Teams continue to move games to bigger buildings to capture the upside when stars, namely Clark, come to town. The Dallas Wings moved their game this week against the Fever to American Airlines Arena, which holds 19,200 fans—175% more than their current home—and will be a record gate for the team.
Tickets drove the gains last year, but 2025 will be a boon for sponsorship revenue, as teams have a year of record metrics to show brands looking to invest in women’s sports. Ahead of the 2025 season, the Los Angeles Sparks and Wings both signed jersey sponsorships with financial services firm Albert, worth at least $2 million per year on average. Atlanta just inked its first seven-figure deal and is expecting sponsorship revenue to increase 65% in 2025.
The new W teams should all hit the ground running, with strong ownership, markets and venues, as well as a blueprint laid out by the Valkyries on how to launch a team in this new WNBA era. The W teams launching with NBA backing have a built-in advantage with sophisticated operations that can more easily capitalize on the hyper-interest. When Clark announced on social media in February 2024 that she would enter the WNBA Draft, the Fever, who held the No. 1 pick, had 6,000 ticket inquiries that afternoon. It is hard for an independent team without an NBA ticketing sales team to capitalize on that in a timely manner.
Next year, every WNBA team will get a boost from the new national TV package with ESPN, NBC and Amazon. The 11-year, $77 billion deal the NBA signed includes $2 billion per year for the WNBA, a 500% increase over the average of their previous deal. Last month, the W signed a separate deal with Ion and is on track to add one more broadcast partner that will push annual revenue to $260 million per year.
There is plenty of upside left on the TV side, which ideally is the lifeblood of the economic model for every major sports league. WNBA teams are starting to generate local TV revenue, and the new national deals are still just 4% of what the NBA will earn under its new agreements. However, WNBA TV regular-season ratings last year were 43% of what NBA games received; that number drops to 25% if you strip out viewership for games featuring the Fever and Clark.