The WNBA is poised for sharply increased media rights revenue under the NBA’s looming deals with Disney, Comcast and Amazon.
The NBA media rights deal — which league owners approved Tuesday — includes $200 million per year for WNBA games, Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic reported Tuesday. WNBA games would air across all three of the NBA’s expected broadcast partners, Disney (ESPN), Comcast (NBC and Peacock) and Amazon (Prime Video), with the league retaining the right to sell up to two additional packages separately.
The WNBA is believed to make an estimated $60 million per year as part of the existing NBA media rights deal, which covers the league’s games on ESPN. (The NBA’s other incumbent broadcaster, TNT, has never aired WNBA games.) WNBA games also air on Amazon, CBS and Scripps’ ION as part of deals the league reached separately.
ION is expected to be a contender for one of the additional packages going forward, according to reporting last month by John Ourand of Puck. (Ourand, it should be noted, reported that the WNBA was likely to sell one additional package, not two.) Per Vorkunov, the WNBA could earn an additional $60 million per year through the additional deals, bringing its total annual rights haul to $260 million annually.
Though approved by the NBA board of governors on Tuesday, the NBA media rights deal will not be official until Warner Bros. Discovery has the opportunity to decide whether it wants to deploy its disputed matching rights in order to retain a package of games. While WNBA games have never aired on TNT, any successful match by WBD — however unlikely — would almost certainly include WNBA inventory.
