Solving the Mystery of WNBA Profitability!

Maybe a Scooby-Doo Plot Can Save the Players!

Back in 2018, Adam Silver -- the commissioner of the NBA (the entity that owns more than half of the WNBA) – asserted the WNBA has lost $10 million in each year of its existence. Silver offered absolutely no evidence to back his assertion. The NBA has also claimed several times– again, without evidence – the NBA itself has often not been profitable since at least the early 1970s. Despite this history, many gullible people have bought the WNBA profitability story over the years. And more often than not, reporters state Silver’s assertion about the WNBA – again, an assertion without any supporting evidence – as an absolute fact.

Readers of Slaying the Trolls know we devote an entire chapter to all the problems with the WNBA’s profitability story. Yes, there are many problems!

For here, let’s talk a bit about investment in the WNBA.

Given Adam Silver’s story in 2018 about WNBA profits, perhaps few people were too surprised when the Clara Wu and Joseph Tsai bought the New York Liberty for less than $15 million in 2019. It is also likely few people were shocked that Mark Davis was able to buy the Las Vegas Aces in 2021 for just $2 million. Once again, Silver said the WNBA is a consistent money loser. So, who would want to invest in such a league?

Soon after Davis bought the Aces, though, the WNBA world seemed to change. In the first half of 2023, investment groups purchased minority ownership in the Seattle Storm and Chicago Sky. The investment from these groups placed the value of the Sky at $85 million and the value of Storm at $131 million. The next year, investors paid $2.08 million for just a 1% share of the Dallas Wings (so the Wings were worth $208 million!). Yes, someone paid more for 1% of the WNBA’s last place team in 2024 than Davis paid three years earlier for an Aces team that went on to win two WNBA titles.

These valuations are not based on speculation or someone’s anonymous assertion. These valuations are based on actual dollars that people spent to be just a small part of the WNBA today.

Such investments clearly make Davis look brilliant. And the Tsais now look the same. In 2025, the New York Post reported that investors in the New York Liberty place the value of that franchise at $450 million! Once again, the Liberty were sold – by New York Knicks owner James Dolan – for less than $15 million in 2019. In just six years, the value of the Liberty rose at least 30 times. For those who wonder why the Knicks have won nothing with Dolan owning the team... well, the Liberty sale tells us something!

We haven’t just seen an explosion in the value of existing franchises. In October of 2023, the expansion fee for the Golden State Valkyries was $50 million. Just a few weeks ago, though, we learned expansion fee for the new WNBA teams in Cleveland, Detroit, and Philadelphia were $250 million. So, in less than two years the WNBA’s expansion fee rose five times.

Obviously, all this suggests the WNBA is booming. We can see this clearly when we think about what’s going on with attendance and TV Ratings. After an amazing 2024 season, the 2025 season has seen even better numbers. As NPR reported a few days ago,

... halfway through the 2025 season, the WNBA is on a victory tour. TV ratings are even higher than last year, up 23% across the board. Attendance has also kept climbing, with games on average seeing 13% more fans than last year and total ticket sales up 26% overall with the debut of the league's 13th team, the Golden State Valkyries.

So, investment is booming. Attendance is booming. And TV ratings are booming.

So, what’s happening with profits?

In June of 2024, the Washington Post reported the WNBA’s losses had grown to $50 million! Yes, while Bloomberg had reported in 2023 that revenues had doubled from 2019 to 2023, the WNBA/NBA insisted that losses had grown five times!

Of course, that was before we saw the conclusion of the 2024 season and the continued growth in 2025. Surely the story has changed, right?

Nope!

Despite hundreds of millions in investment and revenues obviously growing even more, the NBA/WNBA is sticking to its original story. A few days ago the New York Times/Athletic reported the following:

According to sources with knowledge of the discussions who are not authorized to speak about the matter publicly, the league and teams combined have not been profitable since the WNBA’s inception in 1996. (Play began in 1997.) In other words, the aggregate sum of the league and team revenues minus the sum of their expenses has always been a negative number.

Yes, that is an anonymous source that offered zero evidence to back up its claim. Later in the same article, we see this statement:

While the league and teams combined have not been profitable at any point since inception...

Yes, the assertion that had no evidence is now reported in this sentence as an absolute fact! And the assertion keeps being made no matter what else is reported about the WNBA.

For example, that same New York Times/Athletic report also told us the following:

“...the WNBA’s full charter flight program and other team travel expenses (hotels and ground transportation) cost nine percent of combined league and team revenues.”

It appears this statement is put in the story to convince readers the WNBA has very high expenses beyond player salaries. But some simple math says that travel costs in the WNBA are actually quite low. As I noted a few days ago, WNBA has at least $300 million in revenue this year. That means — after some simple math — the WNBA pays less than $30 million for travel.

It also pays less than $20 million in player salaries. Yes, that is less than 7% of the revenue is paid in salaries.

So, that means the WNBA has more than $250 million to spend on something besides charter flights, travel, and player salaries. That should lead people to ask: What is the WNBA doing with all this money? Are they using dollars to heat the offices?

At this point it is clear the WNBA is telling two very different stories. When investors show up at the WNBA offices, the WNBA screams:

Attendance had doubled since 2022! TV ratings are much higher. Merchandise sales have been amazing. The WNBA is definitely something you want to invest in!!

And then when someone – either players or reporter – ask about labor negotiations, those very same people in the WNBA office tell this story.

The WNBA has never been profitable. Never. And the losses are growing. From 2018 to 2024, they grew FIVE TIMES!! How can you ask for money when we are so very poor?

The WNBA players want the league to “pay us what you owe”! But how can the WNBA players make that happen when the WNBA keeps telling everyone – except their investors – that the league is unprofitable?

It appears the mystery simply can’t be solved!

Perhaps what the players need to do is show up at the league office as potential investors (yes, I think this is going to sound like a Scooby Doo plot!!).

Imagine two people – let’s call them Mapheesa Hollier and Feanna Hewart – arrive at the WNBA’s office with dreams of investing in the league. After making it clear to the WNBA’s league office that “Hollier and Hewart” are billionaires, the WNBA league office opens their books and gives the same investment pitch they obviously gave all the other people who have given the WNBA hundreds of millions of dollars. After “Hollier and Hewart” hear this story about the WNBA’s financial picture they take off their disguise and say: “Ha, we are Napheesa Collier and Breanna Stewart! We are the players. Now that we know the truth about your finances, PAY US WHAT YOU OWE US!!”

At that point – like every Scooby Doo cartoon ever – the WNBA (i.e. the villains in this story!) would come clean and say: “And we would have gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those kids!”

Yes, that is all quite silly. But so is the WNBA’s story about profitability.

Really this is not a mystery. As I have told different members of the media the past week (see my interviews at Global News Toronto, KARE11 in Minnesota, Yahoo! Sports, the Ringer, Fox5 in New York City, Sportico, and with the amazing Trysta Krick!), it simply is not believable that investors are giving an unprofitable league hundreds of millions of dollars in new investment.

A more plausible story is that the WNBA’s league office is telling the investors a very different story from what they are saying when they talk about (and to) the players. And very gullible reporters and fans are simply not willing to think that maybe an entity (i.e. the NBA) that has always told us that they can’t make money in professional basketball isn’t exactly telling us the whole story about WNBA profitability!