Spotlight on women's basketball a long time coming, experts say

Is the sports industry final‐ ly taking women's basket‐ ball seriously?

For those who follow the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA), Friday's big news that it's expanding to Toronto, with the team to begin play in May 2026, is just the latest sign of the rise not just of women's basket‐ ball, but women's sports overall.

"This is just part of the tide that's growing in Canada and around the world," se‐ nior sports reporter Shireen Ahmed, who broke the news of the Toronto expansion in a CBC exclusive, told CBC News Network Friday morning.

She pointed to the suc‐ cess of the Professional Women's Hockey League (PWHL) - which has set multi‐ ple viewership and atten‐ dance records in its inaugural season and netted major sponsorship deals - and of the Canadian professional women's soccer league set to kick off in 2025 as other ex‐ amples of a bigger shift in women's sports.

"Those who have been following women's sports for along time already know this. But it's really amazing that everyone else is now in‐ vesting in this, with viewer‐ ship records, attendance records, merchandise selling out completely. So, this is all part of that," Ahmed said.

CBC Sports reported on Friday that Kilmer Sports Inc., headed by Toronto billionaire Larry Tanenbaum, was granted the expansion fran‐ chise. The WNBA did not con‐ firm this, but an announce‐ ment is expected on May 23, according to four people with knowledge of the deal but who were not authorized to speak about it.

The news comes on the heels of an WNBA announce‐ ment that it's finally in a fi‐ nancial position to provide full-time charter flight ser‐ vice, so its teams no longer have to fly commercially, something players have ad‐ vocated for due to safety rea‐ sons for years.

WATCH | WNBA coming to Toronto:

Meanwhile, ESPN just an‐ nounced that Disney+ will stream No. 1 draft pick Caitlin Clark's debut game - reportedly the first time the streaming service will delve into airing live sports.

It all certainly seems to be evidence of this moment we're seeing in women's sports, Michele Donnelly, an assistant professor in sport management at Brock Uni‐ versity in St. Catharines, Ont., told CBC News.

But she stressed that just because the WNBA is being recognized more doesn't mean the talent hasn't al‐ ways been there.

"The WNBA and women's college basketball has had a really hard-core fan base for a long time. People who knew that it was great bas‐ ketball and were showing up and watching when broad‐ casts were available to them," Donnelly said.

"What we're seeing is a very business-centric recog‐ nition that this is a market. That there is money to be made here."

Just the latest move

The WNBA has never been more popular thanks to rookies like Clark, the most prolific scorer in NCAA Divi‐ sion I history and the No. 1 draft pick by the Indiana Fever. She helped the NCAA reach its best viewership in history for women's basket‐ ball, along with player Angel Reese, who joined the Chica‐ go Sky.

WNBA teams also have been moving games against Clark and Indiana to bigger arenas because of increased demand. The defending champion Las Vegas Aces be‐ came the first WNBA team to sell out allotted season tick‐ ets back in March after lead‐ ing the league in attendance in 2023.

ESPN's announcement that Disney+ will also air Clark's debut game next Tuesday is another major de‐ velopment, even if it's only available to subscribers in the U.S. It's significant given that a 2023 report by Nielsen noted that fans want to watch women's sports, but "coverage is hard to find."

The report went on to ex‐ plain that almost a fifth of U.S. fans said live airings of women's sports aren't easily accessible to them.

ESPN will utilize a "WNBA Finals-level production setup" for Indiana's first game to document Clark's debut, the sports channel said in a news release. "Comprehensive cov‐ erage will feature multiple camera angles, including Be‐ low and Above the Rim Cam viewing options, roving RF handheld cameras, and player mics."

Then, there charter flights.

WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in a meeting with sports editors Tuesday that the league will launch a charter program "as soon as we can get planes in places." She said it's pro‐ jected to cost around $25 million US per year for the next two seasons.

Even though it's all posi‐ tive, some might argue the changes we're seeing now should have always been in place, Donnelly said. Still, she said, "it's nice to see."

'Movement,' not just a moment

Earlier this week, Min‐ nesota Lynx coach Cheryl Reeve said it's time for the WNBA, franchises and wom‐ en's sports to be innovative.

"We've had moments in the league," Reeve told the Associated Press, calling the are the current momentum a tsuna‐ mi. "But this is clearly a movement. And if you think it's not, you're going to get left behind."

The movement appears to be catching on in Canada, where research from the na‐ tional non-profit Canadian Women & Sport released last month said two in three Canadians are fans of wom‐ en's sport, and there's an ap‐ petite for more. The report also noted that fans of wom‐ en's sports are a desirable audience for investors - "di‐ verse, educated, and afflu‐ ent."

"Women's pro sport is no longer a hypothetical oppor‐ tunity," Allison SandmeyerGraves, CEO at Canadian Women & Sport, said in news release in April. "It's time for more bold investment in pro‐ fessional women's sport in Canada."

And, in that sense, the WNBA's expansion into Toronto is something Don‐ nelly says she's viewing with "cautious optimism," and she's interested in how the logistics will unfold.

"We're in a moment where we could see things change, but our history shows some real unevenness and there are no guaran‐ tees."

WATCH | Fans react to news WNBA is coming to Toronto: