You always want a viewership story to sell if you are a professional sports league and the WNBA has a great metrics story to sell in 2024. Last week ESPN announced that its WNBA regular season was its most-watched ever for games across ESPN Networks airwaves (including ABC). Games averaged 1.2 million viewers, a massive jump over last year’s games (440,000 viewers). These are unheard of percentage increases in sports television.

Something even more impressive? The WNBA had 22 regular-season games that averaged more than 1 million viewers — the first time since 2008 that a WNBA game topped one million viewers. If you want to add in the WNBA All-Star Game and the WNBA Draft, it makes 24 programming events during the 2024 calendar year that topped 1 million viewers (Caitlin Clark was part of all but three of these windows, per Sports Media Watch).

On that note: The WNBA All-Star Game averaged 3.44 million viewers on ABC, crushing the previous audience record set in 2003. The WNBA Draft, featuring Clark, Angel Reese, Cameron Brink, averaged a record 2.446 million viewers, which is a 307 percent increase in viewership over last year.

What else? There were seven games on ION this season that topped more than 1 million viewers including last Friday’s game between Indiana and Las…

In the grand scheme of the 2024 season, the identity of the eighth seed in the WNBA postseason bracket is relatively inconsequential. The New York Liberty have been the best team in the league for essentially the entire year. Their net rating of plus-12.1 points per 100 possessions is more than 15 points better than any of the three teams vying for the final playoff spot, and a three-game series should be short work for the title contenders.

But the ultimate outcome shouldn’t overshadow the fun of the process, and the minor miracle it would be for the Washington Mystics to claim that final bid. As a reminder, the Mystics lost 12 consecutive games to start the year. The 2015 Los Angeles Sparks currently hold the WNBA record for the longest opening losing streak (0-7) before making the playoffs. Seven games represented 20 percent of that 34-game season in 2015, but Washington crushed that mark by going 0-fer for 30 percent of this year, yet it has rallied to sit in the No. 8 seed with two games to play.

The Mystics weathered injuries to Brittney Sykes, Karlie Samuelson and Shakira Austin while trading away Myisha-Hines Allen. That simply meant more playmaking duties for Ariel Atkins, who has the highest assist rate of her career; more offense from Stefanie Dolson, now the…

Angel Reese’s season is done, but the Chicago Sky’s isn’t. The question now is whether Chicago has three more games to play … or more.

A post-Olympics swoon has the Sky out of playoff position for the first time since July 1, with eight losses in their last 10 games. They are in ninth place despite being tied with the Washington Mystics due to the season-series tiebreaker, and the Atlanta Dream are one game behind. Chicago finishes the season against Phoenix, at Atlanta and at Connecticut.

Of course, a debate remains about whether making the playoffs is even the best course of action for the Sky. Dallas owns swap rights with Chicago’s first-round pick, but missing the playoffs could get the Sky as high as second in the 2025 draft, whereas making the postseason would presumably push them back to sixth since Golden State is expected to have the fifth pick.

With the lottery upside of missing the playoffs and Chicago currently sitting on the outside looking in, chasing the postseason might seem foolhardy. But the Sky have competed for a playoff spot for the entire season and the team’s mindset hasn’t changed.

As Chennedy Carter said emphatically in her return from health and safety protocols: “I want to make a run, I’m here to do that, let’s f—ing do it. Let’s…

The Athletic has launched a series of sports debates in which two writers break down a specific topic. In this edition, Sabreena Merchant and Ben Pickman debate which WNBA team will be the most dangerous in the playoffs. (Stats are before Wednesday night’s games.)

Sabreena Merchant: For the first time in three seasons, the WNBA has a new title favorite entering the postseason: the New York Liberty. They’ll have the best record in the league and have beaten each of the other top teams in the standings – the only squad in the WNBA to win against each of the other playoff teams. But even if the Liberty are the favorite on paper, that doesn’t mean they’re heading into the postseason with the most momentum. Ben, is New York the team you most wouldn’t want to play in the 2024 playoffs?

Ben Pickman: If it’s the team most likely to put a top-four seed on upset alert, I have to choose the Indiana Fever, right? Indiana has won nine of 11 contests since second-half play resumed and heading into Wednesday’s loss against the Aces, the Fever had a 6.1 net rating, the third-best mark in the league. Kelsey Mitchell is averaging 24.9 points per game (second-most since play resumed) on 49.7 percent shooting, while Caitlin Clark is third in scoring (24.7 points) and first in…

Several WNBA players and WNBPA executive director Terri Jackson criticized WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert on Tuesday for Engelbert’s comments earlier this week about toxicity created by the perceived rivalry between Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese.

The backlash came after Engelbert was asked explicitly during an appearance on CNBC’s “Power Lunch” on Monday how the WNBA tries to “stay ahead of” or act when sentiments about Clark and Reese involve some “very uncharitable things about the other,” and specifically about comments online that “have taken a darker turn, a more menacing turn, where race has been introduced into the conversation, where sexuality is sometimes introduced into the conversation.”

“The one thing that’s great about the league right now, we do sit at this intersection of culture and sports and fashion and music,” Engelbert replied. “Like, the WNBA players are really looked at now as kind of cultural icons. And when you have that, you have a lot of attention on you. … It is a little bit of that Bird-Magic moment if you recall, from 1979. When those two rookies came in from a big college rivalry, one White, one Black. And so we have that moment with these two.

“But the one thing I know about sports, you need rivalry. That’s what…

Chicago Sky rookie Angel Reese, the league leader in rebounds, will miss the remainder of the WNBA season with a wrist injury, the team announced Saturday. It was after undergoing a medical evaluation following Friday’s game that Reese was ruled out for the rest of the season, according to the team.

“I’m filled with emotions right now that I have a season-ending injury, but also filled with so much gratitude for what is next,” Reese said on social media Saturday.

Reese recorded a double-double of 24 points and 12 rebounds as the Sky beat the Los Angeles Sparks 92-78 on Friday. It was Reese’s rookie record 26th double-double of the season.

What a year. I never would have imagined the last bucket of my rookie season would be a 3 but maybe that was God saying give them a taste of what they will be seeing more of in Year 2 lolThrough it all, I have showed that I belong in this league even when no one else believed.… pic.twitter.com/re1X85mWR2

— Angel Reese (@Reese10Angel) September 8, 2024

It’s been a record-setting rookie campaign for Reese after the Sky drafted her seventh in the 2024 WNBA Draft out of LSU. She is the WNBA’s all-time leader in single-season total rebounds (446) and offensive rebounds (172). She surpassed Sylvia Fowles for the WNBA…

Teresa Weatherspoon couldn’t watch “The Shot” for years. It’s still not the easiest topic for her to discuss.

Weatherspoon is the head coach of the Chicago Sky, but 25 years ago she was a guard for the New York Liberty and facing the Houston Comets in the 1999 WNBA Finals. Houston led 67-65 with 2.4 seconds left in Game 2 of the best-of-three series on a basket from Tina Thompson. The Comets had a 1-0 series lead and were looking to close the deal and win their third consecutive league championship.

A minor miracle was needed for the Liberty to win — and Weatherspoon delivered in front of 16,285 fans at the Compaq Center in Houston. She caught an inbounds pass from Kym Hampton and launched a desperation, 50-foot shot, banking it in to give the Liberty an improbable 68-67 victory on Sept. 4, 1999.

It was one of the first iconic moments in the WNBA’s history.

The downside for the Liberty, however, was losing Game 3 the next day.

“I wouldn’t watch it for many, many years because we didn’t win the championship,” Weatherspoon said.

Her difficulty in speaking about that period goes beyond the playoffs. Weatherspoon played the entire season with a heavy heart. Her 19-year-old nephew, Anthony, had died in a car crash weeks before the start of the regular season….

Late next week, the WNBA will send out ballots for its end-of-season awards. Sixty-eight media members will have eight days to submit selections for 10 different awards, including Most Valuable Player, Defensive Player of the Year, and first- and second-team All-WNBA.

What I’m about to say will never happen, and I’m equally aware it would be wildly unpopular on the fringes of Caitlin Clark’s and Angel Reese’s fan bases, where rational discussion goes to die and a compliment of one player is viewed as a criticism of the other. But, what the heck. Let’s do it anyway.

For me, this season’s Rookie of the Year award should be shared by Clark and Reese, not only for their performances on the court, where each has done things never before seen in the league’s nearly three-decade history, but also for their impact off it. The two have been like neodymium magnets, attracting viewers and generating revenue at a dizzying rate.

GO DEEPER

Caitlin Clark, Fever clinch WNBA playoff spot

Longtime league followers will argue the W’s popularity was trending up before the rookies’ arrival, which is true. But the level of interest among mainstream media and casual fans was negligible for much of that time. Broadcast partners even treated the W as an afterthought, neither promoting…

After focusing on the top half of the playoff bracket last week, it’s time to check in on a surprisingly spirited race for the eighth seed. With about two weeks left in the regular season, seven playoff teams are essentially set in stone, though the matchups aren’t yet set.

There is drama at the bottom of the postseason bracket. Chicago has been in a tailspin since the Olympic break, relinquishing what had been a comfortable lead over the lottery teams. The Sky have lost six in a row, suffering from the absence of Chennedy Carter (illness) and already without Marina Mabrey due to the pre-deadline trade. Chicago is still slotted into the No. 8 seed by virtue of a 2-1 head-to-head tiebreaker over Atlanta; however, a Sept. 17 showdown against the Dream looms charge. The Sky don’t have a true incentive to tank out of the playoffs because they don’t own their first-round pick, but they do have a swap with Dallas. If it seems like the Wings also will land outside the top eight, missing the postseason would ensure that Chicago at least gets a lottery pick, even if it’s not the best selection.

The Atlanta Dream (11-21) have now matched the Chicago Sky’s record! #WNBA pic.twitter.com/ei16oNr1V1

— I talk hoops (@trendyhoopstars) September 2, 2024

Atlanta seems to…

CHICAGO — It might’ve been a Barbie World, but it was Caitlin’s House.

In the fourth and final matchup between Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese — and, you know, the Indiana Fever and the Chicago Sky — there was no question who the model player was in a pink-festooned Wintrust Arena for “Barbie Night.”

Clark scored a season-high 31 points and added 12 assists in a 100-81 blowout victory in a packed arena Friday night. Meanwhile, Reese struggled to get into rhythm, finishing with 10 points and 11 rebounds.

The Fever are rising, the Sky are falling, and let’s be honest, there’s no race for Rookie of the Year. It was a nice story while it lasted — the continuation of a rivalry born in college, one that has been a welcome addition to the WNBA — but for this award, there’s a first place and second place, and we know the order.

moving up

go inside the locker room after we moved into 6th place in the playoff standings with our win at Chicago. pic.twitter.com/GM3h889wLB

— Indiana Fever…