No Shortage Of WNBA Excitement In '25: Winning Numbers Boost Achievements

By Barry Janoff

Photo: WNBAApril 27, 2025: Following a 2024 season that was highly eventful, the WNBA is coming out of an off-season that was anything but uneventful.

Seven of the league’s established 12 teams begin the 2025 campaign with new head coaches: Atlanta, Chicago, Connecticut, Dallas, Indiana, Los Angeles and Washington. Also, expansion team Golden State, now the league’s 13th franchise, has the first head coach in its history.

League logo and icon Diana Taurasi and two-time MVP Elena Delle Donte both retired; expansion was unveiled to Portland, scheduled to begin play as the league’s 15th franchise in 2026; new marketing partners were signed, including Ally as a Changemaker and the league’s official banking partner and Coach; and Serena Williams became a part owner of the expansion Toronto Tempo, also scheduled to begin play in 2026 (as unveiled in May 2024).

The Nasmith Basketball Hall of Fame said that icons Sue Bird, Maya Moore, Sylvia Fowles had been named to the Class of ’25.

In addition, some three dozen players participated in the inaugural season of Unrivaled, which was founded by WNBA stars Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart.

That all led to the WNBA Draft on April 14, when UConn’s Paige Beuckers was selected No. 1 overall by the Dallas Wings and 19-year-old French-phenom Dominique Malonga No. 2 by the Seattle Storm.

Training camps open today (April 27), and there will be less than a week until the first pre-season games.

On May 2, Beuckers and the Wings play the Las Vegas Aces; and the Brazil National Team play second-year star Angel Reese, rookie Hailey Van Lith and the Chicago Sky in Reese’s alma matter LSU Pete Maravich Assembly Center.

On May 3, the Washington Mystics play the Indiana Fever and last season’s Rookie of the Year Caitlin Clark.

The 2025 season begins May 16 when the Aces face defending champion New York Liberty and the Sky face the Fever (both games on ABC and ESPN)

Beuckers' first official game is May 19 when the Wings play the Storm (NBA TV).

With all that and more to digest, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert put the league’s current and future status into perspective during a media conference at the Draft in New York, including the formation of a task force whose mission is to “combat the increasing volume of hate and vitriol directed toward players and teams.”

“As we look ahead to the upcoming season, there has never been more excitement around the WNBA, at least since I’ve been here,” said Engelbert. “The momentum from last year has carried over in a big way, fueled by incredible fan engagement, rising TV viewership and a league stacked with extraordinary talent.

“There is a lot of capital coming into women’s sports, We raised capital ahead of the trend in early 2002 that has served us well and has been driving a level of confidence by many others: incoming corporate partners, media partners and certainly our owners who see huge growth prospects. They are all investing heavily in the player experience.”

The player experience has not always been positive.

Photo: WNBA“We have been working hard during the off-season on a comprehensive platform around a multi-dimensional approach to combating hate and vitriol in the forms experienced by our players, teams, staffs and fans,” said Engelbert.

“We want to ensure that the WNBA remains a space where everyone — players, fans and corporate partners — feel safe, valued and empowered. We have assembled a dedicated task force to collaborate with key stakeholders including league and team representatives and external organizations and experts.”

According to the commissioner, the platform will be four-pronged:

• Monitoring social media and other digital platforms using an advanced technology solution to detect comments and threat

• Strengthening conduct standards across WNBA platforms, including in arenas

• Added security measures at league and team levels

• Continued services of dedicated mental health clinicians for players.

After adding the Golden State Valkyries (2025), Toronto Tempo and Portland (2026), expansion is expected to add a 16th team by 2028.

“Conversations about future expansion remain on-going,” said Englebert. “We are evaluating a huge demand from cities and ownership groups and investments from a variety of cities.

“This growth is another testament to the strength of our league and the demand we are seeing from our fans. And from cities and owners who want to be part of the WNBA’s future. We talked about going to 16 teams by 2028 and we are still on-track for that. We have a process. We are using an outside banker.

“So we are still evaluating whether it is more than one, quite frankly. So we’ve got to put all that together, you don’t want to de-rate the quality of the game already going to 16. We’re adding 33% additional roster spots by adding 48 roster spots to a league of 144, so we’re in the process of evaluating all of that.”

Regarding Unrivaled and its possible impact on the WNBA, Englebert said she is “proud of what Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart have thought through with that league. I’m proud of what they are doing. I’ve talked to them and attended back in February.

“But we have 16 teams and over 190 players (Unrivaled has six teams with six players each) we need to take care of, so I know it’s a lot easier to do 30 in one spot (Unrivaled played all its games in a dedicated venue in Miami). We travel the world and the U.S. and have a big platform, so what the WNBA offers is a huge platform to our players around their corporate partners, around activating.

“There is not one ad spot today, not one sporting event where you don’t see a an as spot with a WNBA player in it. That’s pretty cool. State Farm, Nike, you see so many of our corporate partners continue to step up and put our players into their ad spots. That’s a great sign and symbol.”

According to Englebert, “Anything that raises the theme of basketball, of women’s basketball, we support. We are thrilled with the momentum we have coming off of the NCAA season, off of Unrivaled. But certainly thrilled with the viewership we have.and the momentum we have and the capital coming into the league, as well as the investment the owners are making.

“Regarding global scale, we generally have been a domestic league in 12 cities, soon to be 15, including north of the border with the Toronto Tempo launching next year. But we have a lot of opportunity. The sport is very popular (internationally).

“I went to the Paris Olympics. The sport is very popular is Europe, Asia, Africa. So our next step once we get though expansion, collective bargaining, is to make an impact globally. We want to build our players into global brands. That’s what we aspire to.   

“We’ve had a few years of great growth . . .  but we need to continue to make sure that we can fund the things that the players are asking for, that we want for them, too,” Engelbert said. “We all want the players to make more money. That will happen. We’ll do something transformational.”

With the No.1 Overall Pick: Bueckers, Future Stars Headline WNBA ’25 Draft

WNBA Signs Ally As Changemaker, Official Bank; Ally Signs Rookie Bueckers

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