RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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CHICAGO — Fans clutching cellphones at the ready bracketed each end of a line of black Suburbans and sprinter vans outside the Obama Presidential Center on a mild morning in July.
They were there to see a president, but it wasn't Barack Obama. There was a chance that Nneka Ogwumike, the WNBA Players Association president who ushered a transformative collective bargaining agreement (CBA) over the finish line this past offseason, could walk out. Her sister, ESPN broadcaster and former player Chiney Ogwumike, heel-tapped over for photos. Caitlin Clark exited stage right, a hoodie over her head, while Jessica Shepard stepped onto a waiting bus unbothered.
This is the world of the WNBA in its 30th season, where fans crowded the sidewalks of practice facilities, hotels and player appearances. More people watched their All-Star game than the NBA's, and TV viewership ranked second all time for the event.
Those factoids are already lost to the past amid a league grappling with a stark delineation between reality and social media. Those photos at the Obama Center and elsewhere during All-Star weekend were dissected and investigated more than a Nancy Drew case.
On Saturday, DiJonai Carrington's flagrant foul on Sophie Cunningham added fuel to the fire of recent WNBA discourse. Icon Sportswire via Getty Images
That level of interest is in part a result of a more robust marketing team. Now it has to sift through the muck and stay focused amid all the discourse that evolves into headlines . They come non-stop, the latest occurring Saturday when the Sky's DiJonai Carrington committed a Flagrant Foul 2 on the Fever's Sophie Cunningham . After the automatic ejection, she took to social media to say "White privilege" afterward while tagging the Fever. The league has not announced any further punishment for Carrington.
"We still have a league to run," WNBA chief marketing officer Phil Cook told Yahoo Sports on the first night of All-Star's WNBA Live event. "We still need to inform the fans: when are the games, who's playing, what's an important piece of this game we should be cognizant of, where can I watch it, when's it on?
"That part of our job has to go on irrespective of the noise and the clutter. But we see it all. And we talk about it often."
The challenge is juggling it.
The Taylor Swift Effect and cultural reach
Marketing strictly toward already established sports fans is no longer the path toward growth for any league, the 30-year-old WNBA included.
A study released last month by Genius Sports as part of The Fan Project found that fans of women's sports are more willing to spend — particularly when a brand uses an athlete in storytelling — and 88.6% of women's sports fans view fan apparel as "culturally meaningful," even if they'd never purchased a ticket to a game.
" We know that there's an audience out there who may enter the WNBA only through the cultural door," Cook said. "They might just be fans of sneakers or fashion or personal care products, so why not invite them into our league? They don't have to come in through the 94-by-50 [court-sized] door, they can come in through a different door."
Those companies surrounded him at WNBA Live, where 34 partners and licensees, including Dick’s Sporting Goods, Coach and Ally Financial, leaned into player-led merchandise. A nearby TV aired the ESPN docuseries "Life in the W," released that weekend, which followed the 2025 seasons of A'ja Wilson, Napheesa Collier and DeWanna Bonner.
Fan interest and engagement in the WNBA is at an all-time high, but that attention comes with downsides. Geoff Stellfox via Getty Images
But the "classic case," Cook said, is in the NFL, where the relationship between Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and pop star Taylor Swift allowed an easy entry for girls and women to latch onto the sport. Fathers cited their daughters' interest in watching games for the first time , and t he data bore out the anecdotes.
Viewership for the Chiefs' 2024 Super Bowl win reached a record 123.7 million, with a 24% jump in 18-to-24-year-old women . Nearly two-thirds of Gen Z (ages 14-29) and millennial women (ages 30-45) held a favorable opinion of the NFL in December 2023, a growth of 11% from July, according to the Morning Consult . Swift attended her first game that September.
"While we don't have that magnetic of a draw, I think we have grants who are willing to invest with us in that space and bring their audience into their ecosystem," Cook said.
More attention, more noise
Yet, opening that many doors creates the unintended consequence of ushering in unwelcome company. As droves of new fans step in, so, too, do people and groups unwilling to learn about the league's history or choosing to chase their own agendas. Some long-time fans feel like the intimate space they created is being infiltrated.
It often manifests online in snippets of misinformation, incorrect character-based claims and allegations with an impact on real people. Players who utilized social media to build their brands in an era of little investment vary in how they still regard the medium.
"The internet is going to create whatever narratives they're going to create," Lynx guard Courtney Williams, who runs the popular "StudBudz" livestream during All-Star, said. "You could have someone blatantly lying and the internet will take it and run with it. That ain't got s*** to do with the league. You know what I'm saying? Like, if you want to feed into the narrative, that's your business. If you don't, then block them folks."
Courtney Williams, alongside former teammate and "Studbudz" collaborator Natisha Hiedeman, knows first...
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