Last week’s WNBA All-Star Game in Phoenix was “probably the greatest spectacle in the league’s history,” longtime Minnesota Lynx and U.S. national team coach Cheryl Reeve said.
Transcendent rookies Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese battled established superstars Diana Taurasi and A’ja Wilson, with celebrities Jason Sudeikis, Aubrey Plaza, the Bryant family and some 16,400 others watching at the Footprint Center. All-Star MVP Arike Ogunbowale led Team WNBA past the U.S. Olympic squad in a showcase viewed by 3.4 million people on ABC, the league’s most-watched game ever on ESPN platforms.
It was the latest example of the surge in popularity of women’s basketball, an explosion that over the past nine months has been punctuated by the announcement of the league’s first two expansion franchises since 2008, the shift to full-time charter travel at the beginning of the 2024 season and, most recently and arguably most significantly, the signing of an 11-year, $2.2 billion media rights deal…
