Because the arrival of Caitlin Clark, the WNBA has skilled a meteoric rise in recognition.
The league’s viewership noticed a 24-year excessive throughout Clark’s rookie season in 2024, and you do not have to be an professional to comprehend that the league is extra well-liked than ever. Ladies’s basketball is extra well-liked than ever.
WNBA gamers are poised to benefit from this of their collective bargaining settlement. 90 % of the gamers voted to opt out of the present CBA, as they’re searching for higher pay and advantages from the league.
Gamers ought to begin seeing extra money. Name it the Caitlin Clark impact. It is not that completely different from what Tiger Woods did for the PGA Tour.
But when the WNBA actually desires to take off, it must cease treating itself like a minor league, which means it must play basketball throughout basketball season.
The concept behind the summer season schedule is not a nasty one. It is smart to keep away from competing in opposition to the NBA and different winter sports activities. Not less than it did.
On one other stage, it is a unhealthy thought, kind of like spring soccer. It makes it really feel like a minor league, and whereas the UFL is, the WNBA is something however.
The league has stars past Caitlin Clark. It has an incredible product, and within the case of girls’s school basketball, taking part in similtaneously males hasn’t damage.
It would not damage the WNBA both. As an alternative of millions watching Clark play in a preseason game in opposition to Brazil, they need to see her battling within the WNBA playoffs.
Possibly going head-to-head with the NBA playoffs is not one of the best thought. However it’s not the worst both, and is definitely higher than competing in opposition to school soccer, the NFL, and Main League Baseball in October, when the WNBA playoffs end.
Think about if the WNBA began in December, proper round Christmas Day.
If the common season lasts roughly 4 months (at the moment from Might to September), it might finish in April, which means the WNBA playoffs might run alongside the NBA.
Having each genders taking part in in March hasn’t been a difficulty for the NCAA event. The ladies’s event has gotten loads of viewers, even without Clark.
The identical might occur for the WNBA. It might additionally imply one of the best ladies’s basketball gamers on the planet attending to play in a single league, year-round, throughout basketball season.
What a revolutionary thought.
