WNBA Sponsor Deals Jump 52% Since...

When WNBA players say they want a greater percentage of growing league revenue, a portion of that comes from sponsorship deals that have increased 52% since 2022.

In its first-ever WNBA Partnerships Report—released just after the league’s 2025 All-Star Weekend—sports and entertainment sponsorship data platform SponsorUnited placed the value of WNBA sponsorships at the end of 2024 at $76 million. Its teams averaged more than 44 sponsor deals apiece, but that number is expanding rapidly. 

The report noted that in 2024 alone, following Caitlin Clark’s Rookie of the Year campaign with the Indiana Fever, sponsorship deals increased 17%, league attendance was up 48%, ESPN viewership jumped 170%, and merchandise sales rose by 600%. More than 450 brands signed 531 deals with teams, with the Phoenix Mercury, Las Vegas Aces, and Fever taking in the most brand revenue.

Brands themselves spent bigger, with Ally Financial signing on as the Aces’ official banking partner and placing its logo on the team’s jersey patches and training center. The WNBA alone accounted for 25% of all of Ally’s marketing spend across major sports, but grew even greater when Ally became the league’s banking partner this April.

Eli Lilly, meanwhile, invested in a jersey patch for its hometown Fever and spends 75% of its sports budget within the WNBA—where it sponsored mobile mammograms in Indianapolis during All-Star Weekend. Eli Lilly’s support of the Fever is three times that of its spending on their Gainbridge Fieldhouse roommates, the NBA’s Indiana Pacers.

SponsorUnited founder and CEO Bob Lynch sees both seasoned sports sponsors and brands that haven’t traditionally gravitated toward the space drawn to the “29-year-old startup” of the WNBA by its fairly low price of entry and lack of category competition At the same time, a new generation of women’s college basketball players is signing name, image, and likeness rights while in school and bringing those brands into the WNBA with them.

“Essentially, it becomes a minor league feeder system for brands that are now starting to say, ‘We were able to do a very low-cost deal with a women’s college basketball athlete. It worked well. We can replicate this with other athletes. Maybe we should do more with the teams in a more integrated way than just social content and appearances,’” Lynch said, noting his initial inspiration for the report. “That’s really feeding into this, and what I saw was this coming wave of commerce that was going to come into the WNBA.”