Tickets for the event sold out in 15 minutes; viewership on ESPN averaged 2.4 million people, up 328% over 2023; and photos of the new WNBA players showing off their signature style on the red carpet lit up social media.
The event turned out to be a microcosm of the 2024 season, in which the 28-year-old league leveled up in every measurable category. By the end of the season, the league had secured a new $2.2 billion, 11-year media-rights deal with Disney, Amazon, and NBCUniversal, set to begin in 2026. That works out to approximately $200 million per year, a massive jump from the current deal, of about $50 million per year. The WNBA delivered its most-watched regular season in 24 years (with more than 54 million unique viewers) and finished with its highest attendance in 22 years. The 12-team league, which is adding the Golden State Valkyries this year, also announced expansion teams in Toronto and Portland, Oregon, to start playing in 2026. Alex Bhathal and Lisa Bhathal Merage, the brother and sister who purchased the Portland team, paid a record $125 million expansion fee.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der Spring 2025-Ausgabe von Fast Company.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent ? Anmelden
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der Spring 2025-Ausgabe von Fast Company.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
Bereits Abonnent? Anmelden
Entangled Publishing
FOR FUELING THE ROMANTASY FRENZY
Homecourt For adding luxury to sustainable, nontoxic household products
CLEANING YOUR home is hardly a sexy undertaking. But when you’re obsessed with design, cleanliness, and things smelling good, it can be joyful.
TOP TEN
“I WOULDN'T WANT TO COME HERE, TO BE honest” is not the first tourism slogan that would occur to most marketers.
HistoSonics
FOR CHANNELING SOUND TO DESTROY LIVER TUMORS
Zero Foodprint For funding "collective regeneration"
EVERY DAY, Americans spend hundreds of millions of dollars on food, yet very little of that money directly changes how food is grown.
Iceye
FOR SEEING THE WORLD, EVEN THROUGH CLOUDS
Duolingo
For finding a common language
WNBA For posting up when it mattered
WHEN BASKETBALL STARS CAITLIN Clark, Angel Reese, and Cameron Brink rolled up to the Brooklyn Academy of Music last April for the 2024 WNBA draft, they signaled the arrival of a new generation of talent—and the league’s cultural ascendance.
Port of Portland
For creating a truly local airport
Crunchyroll For turning anime fandom into an ecosystem
BEING A FAN OF ANIME IN THE aughts meant you either had to know Japanese or rely on the kindness of internet strangers, who would up- load their own subtitled versions of popular series to video-hosting site Crunchyroll, which launched in 2006. In the nearly two decades since, anime has crossed from subculture into mainstream pop culture among Western audiences, with Crunchyroll leading the way.
