What Is Behind The Success Of Women's Sports Like WNBA?
Don't Dilute The Brand — Women's Sports Are For Women
The concluding sentence to my last essay about Ben and Jerry’s string of social activism debacles reads:
“Ultimately, principled builders and creators will know they serve far more people effectively when there are more of them earning higher profits — and celebrating with a Milk and Honey ice cream cone.”
That is because earning higher profits is a complex and noble challenge worthy of social recognition and Milk and Honey ice cream.
Not only must owners and managers anticipate the needs and desires of customers, they must attract talent and capital, serve their sometimes conflicting needs and desires, and do it with ever greater efficiency in the arena of competitors who are doing the same thing. Naturally, if a business fails to adapt, it will fail — unless it is subsidized by the force of government (confiscated money or monopoly protection) or social pressure.
Also asserted about Ben and Jerry’s business model before the Unilever acquisition was:
“When you see that making the world a better place becomes the primary goal, you can assume with great confidence that it is not the primary goal.”
The goal is to burn money and punish competence. And when organizations with principles that are opposed — such as producers and parasites, attempt to collaborate with each other, the parasites will prevail. That is because the producers must act inconsistently with their principles, the parasites do not.
The Financials
Consider America’s WNBA women’s basketball league. Not well known is the WNBA is a for-profit corporation. And prior to 2022, 50% of the stock was owned by the NBA and 50% by the league’s individual team owners, but today the split is 42% each with a 16% stake sold to a group of investors for $75 million. But as a private corporation, the WNBAs revenue and expense details are not available to the public.
Regardless, the league has gained a much higher public profile over the last five years because of a significant spike in game attendance, television viewers, sponsorship deals, but mostly over the league’s mismanagement of the causes (the rainmakers) of the attendance, viewers and deals.
Because there are no audited financial statements available for the WNBA — or comprehensive financial statements of any kind, we must rely on the few public disclosures the league, the NBA, or sponsors are willing to reveal. Of course, the release of that information serves a limited purpose for the group making the assertions.
In October 2018, NBA Commissioner David Stern told the Associated Press that the WNBA loses $10 million per year on average. Yet, in 2024, the Washington Post reported the WNBA is on track to lose $50 million on revenues that have doubled to $200 million. That may or may not be due to financial mismanagement, but consider the Sherwood News report of the league’s disdain for capital flowing to talent:
“New sponsors seemed to emerge faster than the league could manage. In May, the Las Vegas Tourism Board announced a sponsorship for the Las Vegas Aces that would have given each player $100,000 — only for the league to turn around and open an investigation into the deal, out of concern it could give players an undue advantage in free agency.”
Obviously, the WNBA’s financial strength and reporting transparency are a pawn in the collective bargaining positions of the players and the league, but if the league’s revenue growth and balance sheet were the result of superior management, the league would have solid ground on which to stand. They do not. The players receive only 17% of the league’s revenue — compared to about 50% in the NBA, NFL and NHL.
The Talent
Born from the notoriety and success of the 1996 USA Olympic team, the WNBA came to life with Rebecca Lobo, Cheryl Miller, Lisa Leslie, and Sheryl Swoopes. But for much of America, with the notable exception of Diana Taurasi and Sue Bird, women’s professional basketball was barely noticeable until another star player, Brittney Griner, was arrested in 2022 and jailed for months in Russia for possession of a cannabis vape.
Regardless of the medieval nature of much of what goes on in Russia, the imprisonment of Griner brings up some worthy questions. Those start with the league’s decision to do business with the Russian government, then expose their players to the force of an unjust system, and ultimately to Griner’s willful negligence and lack of awareness.
More on that later. For now, it is necessary to examine the catalysts for the doubling of revenue and the infusion of capital that the WNBA has enjoyed since 2022. Naturally, the quantitative cause is game attendance — and for the complete 2022 season it was 1.2 million, in 2023 it was 1.6 million, and 2.4 million in 2024.
Last year attendance pushed through 3.1 million fans watching games live because of new talent led by Caitlin Clark of the Indiana Fever. Of course, record-breaking attendance is only part of the story. Since Clark and her 2024 class of rookies entered the league, SportsDataIO reports:
“The 2024 WNBA season has also seen unprecedented viewership numbers. Games are averaging 1.32 million viewers across ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and CBS—nearly tripling last season’s average of 462,000 viewers.”
In a rational world, principled owners would recognize and protect the assets and products that drive revenue. Revenue growth is the quantitative signal that the business is delivering value to customers and profitability is the quantitative signal that the business is delivering value to investors. And in the entertainment industry, the qualitative aspects are the talent driving the value creation — and it is center stage.
Ultimately, owners and management have a moral and financial duty — freely chosen by them, to protect and defend their people — including those who are the rainmakers.
The Reality
In the case of the WNBA, the talent driving the value creation are female athletes. There is no dichotomy. They are women and they are athletes — both, an integrated whole. Female by natural law and athletes by their self-determined talent. And WNBA owners and managers who do not defend all women athletes from imposters and thugs on these principles are parasites in these mixed organizational schemes.
To be clear, I have not been a consistent fan of women’s professional sports, but the most exciting thing I’ve seen was the goal scored from midfield by Carli Lloyd during the 2015 World Cup final against Japan. I remember thinking, “What is she doing? Why is she lining up a kick? She is giving the ball away!” Boy, was I wrong. Lloyd saw what I did not see. Even better, she had practiced this shot hundreds of times. Better yet, she recognized the opportunity. A second later I got it — and Lloyd got the goal — and the hat trick. She knew what she was doing!
In addition to that, my team sport has always been ice hockey, and the excellence and rivalry between the USA and Canadian women’s hockey teams is one of my top attractions for the Winter Olympics. In fact, I have the 1992 Manon Rheaume hockey card. The only sports card I own. Who is Manon Rheaume? She is an Olympic silver medalist from Quebec and former professional who signed a contract with the NHL’s Tampa Bay Lightning. Yes, the NHL — and appeared in two exhibition games. That never happens.
Women do not play in men’s professional leagues for a good reason — and men playing in women’s sports is despicable. Just as bad is WNBA coach Cheryl Reeve wearing a t-shirt on game night saying “Trans Kids Belong.” That is child abuse. Children with gender dysphoria need and deserve the best care possible, not potential mutilation for a problem that is transitory.
Brittney Griner may have been willfully negligent and unaware — but of what? Of her extreme luck for being born in a country founded on the principles of individual rights and objective law. Too many young people today are equally misinformed. The same is true of the WNBA leadership that excuses the flagrant fouling of Caitlin Clark, because she draws the right kind of crowd, and excuses the intimidation and violence of the trans mob outside their arenas during the 2026 season.
Fortunately, the Cheryl Reeve and Megan Rapinoe (USA soccer) types of women’s sports are being outclassed, outhustled and outperformed by the likes of Sophie Cunningham — also of the Indiana Fever, Jennifer Sey of XX-XY Athletics, and Riley Gaines - former world class swimmer from the University of Kentucky.
If the WNBA hopes to live up to the virtues of its for-profit status, it must give up the destructive, nihilistic, pandering to the social justice crowd and protect its most valuable resources — women with character and talent. It’s what capitalists do.
I come to questions of gender and sexuality with a background which is probably very different from yours, but I thank you for posting this. It is not that I find either gender or sexuality so important as isolated issues, but your article is a good opportunity to introduce three points—that the LGBTQIA+ movement is weaponized by foreign entities to drive dynamics of alienation and self-alienation whenever possible, that the trans debate has had the effect of making everyday life more dangerous for congenitally intersex individuals who are often misidentified as being willfully trans, and that your willingness to say something which could potentially get you cancelled is refreshing. Good for you.