Women's National Basketball Association
The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) - colloquially known as "The W"[1][2][3] - is the premier women's professional basketball league. It is composed of 12 (13 in 2025) teams, all based in the United States. The league was founded on April 22, 1996, as the women's counterpart to the National Basketball Association (NBA), and league play started in 1997. The regular season is played from May to September, with the All Star game being played midway through the season in July (except in Olympic years) and the WNBA Finals at the end of September until the beginning of October.
"WNBA" redirects here. For other uses, see WNBA (disambiguation).Founded
April 22, 1996
United States
FIBA Americas (Americas)
12 (13 in 2025)
Las Vegas Aces
(2nd title)
Houston Comets
Minnesota Lynx
Seattle Storm
(4 titles each)
Five WNBA teams have direct NBA counterparts and normally play in the same arena: Indiana Fever, Los Angeles Sparks, Minnesota Lynx, New York Liberty, and Phoenix Mercury. The Atlanta Dream, Chicago Sky, Connecticut Sun, Dallas Wings, Las Vegas Aces, Seattle Storm, and Washington Mystics do not share an arena with a direct NBA counterpart, although four of the seven (the Dream, the Sky, the Wings, and the Mystics) share a market with an NBA counterpart, two (Mystics and Dream) play in NBA G League arenas, while the Storm shared an arena and market with an NBA team, the SuperSonics, at the time of its founding. The Dream, Sky, Sun, Wings, Aces, Sparks, and Storm are all independently owned.
History[edit]
League founded and play begins (1996–97)[edit]
The creation of the WNBA was officially approved by the NBA Board of Governors on April 24, 1996,[4] and announced at a press conference with Rebecca Lobo, Lisa Leslie, and Sheryl Swoopes in attendance.[5] The new WNBA had to compete with the recently formed American Basketball League, another professional women's basketball league that began play in the fall of 1996 but would cease operation during its 1998–99 season.
The WNBA began with eight teams: the Charlotte Sting, Cleveland Rockers, Houston Comets, and New York Liberty in the Eastern Conference; and the Los Angeles Sparks, Phoenix Mercury, Sacramento Monarchs, and Utah Starzz in the Western Conference.[6]
While not the first major women's professional basketball league in the United States (a distinction held by the defunct WBL), the WNBA is the only league to receive full backing of the NBA.[7] The WNBA logo, "Logo Woman", paralleled the NBA logo and was selected out of 50 different designs.[6]
On the heels of a much-publicized gold medal run by the 1996 USA Basketball Women's National Team at the 1996 Summer Olympic Games, the WNBA began its first season on June 21, 1997. The first WNBA game featured the New York Liberty facing the Los Angeles Sparks in Los Angeles. The game was televised nationally in the United States on the NBC television network. At the start of the 1997 season, the WNBA had television deals in place with NBC (NBA rights holder), and the Walt Disney Company and Hearst Corporation joint venture channels, ESPN and Lifetime Television Network. Penny Toler scored the league's first point.[8][9]
Houston domination and league expansion (1997–2000)[edit]
The WNBA centered its marketing campaign, dubbed "We Got Next", around stars Rebecca Lobo, Lisa Leslie, and Sheryl Swoopes.[10] In the league's first season, Leslie's Los Angeles Sparks underperformed, and Swoopes sat out much of the season due to her pregnancy. The WNBA's true star in 1997 was WNBA MVP Cynthia Cooper, Swoopes' teammate on the Houston Comets. The Comets defeated Lobo's New York Liberty in the first WNBA Championship game. The initial "We Got Next" advertisement ran before each WNBA season until it was replaced with the "We Got Game" campaign.
The Houston Comets, Minnesota Lynx, and Seattle Storm hold the distinction of having won the most championships with four titles each. The Comets folded in 2008. The Lynx have the most appearances in the championship with six, all occurring in the seven years from 2011 to 2017.
Teams in red have folded.
Former teams that have no WNBA Finals appearances:
Elena Baranova, Russia – among the first international players in the WNBA (1997), one-time All-Star (2001).
Zheng Haixia, China – first winner of the Kim Perrot Sportsmanship Award and first international player to win a WNBA award (1997)
Janeth Arcain, Brazil – four-time champion (1997–2000), one-time All-Star (2001) and Most Improved Player Award (2001)
Business[edit]
Finance[edit]
During the mid-2000s, the NBA spent more than $10 million per year to keep the WNBA financially solvent.[87] In 2007, teams were estimated to be losing $1.5 million to $2 million a year.[88]
Due to the lack of viewership, the WNBA has not been profitable in past years. The league projected losses through the 2010 season to be around $400 million.[89]
The league has begun to do better financially in recent years. In December 2010, Donna Orender said that the league had its first-ever "cash flow positive" team during the 2010 season.[90] In 2011, three teams were profitable, and in 2013, six of the league's 12 teams reported a profit.[91] The league has also signed extended television contracts with ESPN and sponsorship agreements with Boost Mobile.
Offseason[edit]
Breanna Stewart of the New York Liberty and Napheesa Collier of the Minnesota Lynx plan a new league called Unrivaled which will allow WNBA players to play from January through March, helping solve the problem of players going overseas during the offseason and getting back too late to play WNBA games. The plan is for thirty players on six teams to play three on three and one on one in Miami. Prioritization rules required WNBA players to come back to the United States by May 19 starting in 2023, but some overseas teams would still be in the playoffs at that time. The first tweets by the new league on July 6, 2023, said: "What if the best players in the world created their own league..." and "They did."[174]
