Decision to pass on WNBA looks worse every day
MLSE could’ve found franchise cornerstone in a very loaded draft
So the numbers for the basketball earthquake are in, and yes, the earth shook.
The women’s college basketball final between Iowa and South Carolina drew a TV audience of 18.9 million in the United States. As The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch noted, that was bigger than any NBA Finals game since Game 5 of LeBron James vs. the Golden State Warriors in 2017; bigger than every World Series game since Game 7 of Washington vs. Houston in 2019; bigger than every Masters since a classic Tiger Woods win in 2001.
The U.S. women’s viewership record before this year was the 2023 final, also featuring human flame-thrower Caitlin Clark. It didn’t quite crack 10 million.
And in Canada, TSN saw record numbers, too. The classic Final Four on Friday night between Connecticut and Iowa drew 581,000 Canadians, and the final on Sunday, in mid-afternoon with the game also available on ABC, 404,000. Last year’s women’s final averaged 239,000 in Canada. So the ceiling for a women’s college basketball game in Canada, in this new moment for the sport, more than doubled.
Clark will carry her stardom to the WNBA, and maybe now would be a good time to reflect on how utterly myopic and small it was for Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment to pass on a WNBA expansion team last year.
It’s been about a year since Edward Rogers torpedoed the idea of MLSE adding a WNBA team to its stable because he didn’t want to spend the $50 million (U.S.) and because, according to multiple sources granted anonymity to speak freely regarding the dynamic at MLSE, he and minority owner Larry Tanenbaum were particularly at odds.
It wasn’t going to make a profit right away; still, an internal business case was presented to the board, showing potential paths to profitability, and the growth curves of women’s basketball. But thanks to Rogers, one of two majority owners of MLSE, the idea was doomed.
So Tanenbaum spun out his own sports company and got approval to pursue a WNBA team on his own, and respected Raptors executive Teresa Resch was brought over to run the place. Tanenbaum’s time at MLSE isn’t unlimited but 2026 could be the end of the chairman’s time at MLSE. Tanenbaum loves being a sports owner, and he has been a vital part of MLSE. If he winds up with a WNBA team, he will treat it well.
But MLSE would have been the right home, with the right built-in advantages in marketing, market primacy, facilities and more. It would have given the WNBA the biggest megaphone in Canada.
Instead, we should remember this decision, should Ed Rogers ever gain majority control. Look, MLSE has been an incredibly successful financial enterprise, even with relatively limited sporting success. The Raptors didn’t just achieve what, in context, remains a mind-boggling championship in 2019; they played in a total of 16 playoff series in the past 10 years, and are now worth more than the Maple Leafs. The Leafs will compete in the playoffs for the eighth straight season, the longest franchise stretch since the late 1970s and early 1980s, back when nearly every team made it. Toronto FC won its own championship in 2017, and finished second in 2020. The Argos won a Grey Cup two years ago, and still exist. Both were victories.
Bringing the NBA to Toronto in 1995 was to be ahead of the curve. When MLSE bought an MLS expansion team for $10 million in 2005, it was hard to imagine a valuation of nearly three quarters of a billion today. That was ahead of the curve.
Had MLSE said yes to a WNBA team last year they wouldn’t have gotten a team in time to draft Clark, or South Carolina’s giant Kamilla Cardoso, Stanford’s Cameron Brink, or LSU’s Angel Reese, or Tennessee’s Rickea Jackson, or … well, the WNBA draft is loaded this year. Stars everywhere.
But MLSE would have been just ahead of the curve. Only by a year, at most, but ahead nonetheless. Clark is a once-in-alifetime player and you can’t guarantee there will be another one any more than you could guarantee another Steph Curry. But she should be a tide that should continue to lift boats; she has expanded the shores of the women’s game and become a part of basketball’s evolution.
Watch and see what USC’s JuJu Watkins does next, or UConn’s Paige Bueckers, or Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo, or whoever emerges from the next generation of kids who watched Clark dazzle and fight in a sport full of storylines, and caught a new glimpse of what a women’s player could be.
The PWHL is still establishing itself, but it has a good foundation. Project 8, the nascent pro women’s soccer league, remains in development, and just announced a team in Halifax. MLSE had a chance to get in on women’s basketball, before the rush, before the game changed. Too bad.