With the WNBA finals between the New York Liberty and the Minnesota Lynx in full swing, all eyes are on a league that has exploded in popularity this year.
According to Colie Edison, the WNBA’s svp and chief growth officer, one of the main reasons the league has gotten so popular is that the level of play has improved. This season of the WNBA has had more 100-point games than any season in the league’s 28-year history. Additionally, Name, Image and Likeness rules changed three years ago have allowed college players to score brand deals and build followings.
“There’s more star power than ever before,” Edison said. “Caitlyn Clarke, Angel Reese, … Because of new NIL rules these players could build huge fanbases that followed them into the WNBA.”
While brands like Prada have embraced individual players like Caitlin Clark, New Balance has gone further, signing on to sponsor the entire league in July. Naveen Lokesh, head of global sports marketing for basketball and football at New Balance, said part of the impetus for signing with the WNBA was New Balance’s goal of reaching a younger audience. The WNBA grew its Gen-Z audience by 247% year-over-year in 2024, and many of the WNBA’s players have large social followings among this cohort.
“We think of partnerships with the mindset of ‘Fewer, bigger, better,’” Lokesh said. Lokesh and Edison spoke at a CEO Summit hosted by Wharton School’s Baker Retailing Center and RLC Global Forum on Tuesday. “It was two years before we signed Cameron [Brink, a star player with over a million Instagram followers and New Balance’s first WNBA athlete]. During that time, we did a deep dive into her social audience to make sure it overlapped with the Gen-Z audience that we’re trying to reach.”
Edison said the younger shopper is interested in fashion just as much as sports. Citing internal survey data, she said 92% of WNBA fans see themselves as fashionable.
The WNBA has rapidly grown even from last year. Games averaged around 440,000 viewers last year but now average 1.4 million. New Balance has also been thriving, growing its revenue by 23% in 2023 to $6.5 billion. Its partnership with the WNBA is already paying off. Lokesh said the company did simple A-B testing with a marketing campaign, using Cameron Brink in one ad and a generic model in the other. The ads featuring Brink saw a 22% lift in engagement and another 10% lift when the WNBA logo was added. A post about Cameron Brink wearing New Balance when she was drafted is New Balance’s fourth-most popular post on social media.
Growth of women’s sports isn’t just limited to basketball, although the WNBA is leading the charge. Women’s sports as a whole in the U.S. is expected to bring in over $1 billion this year. Lokesh said New Balance is looking closely at other women’s leagues in sports like soccer and tennis.
“We have an athlete-first approach,” Lokesh told Glossy. “We signed with Cameron a year before we signed the WNBA deal so we could ground ourselves in the sport. We haven’t partnered with the WTA [Women’s Tennis Association], but we have signed with [tennis player] Coco Gauff. It will take time, but there is definitely a long-term plan to do more with other women’s sports leagues in the future.”
