#3

Right now, the W gets $60 million a year for its rights. Two years from now that number goes up to $200 million which is 3 percent of what the NBA gets annually. The regular season game between the Fever and the Mystics had a higher attendance than did the NBA Finals game played simultaneously. Some of the W's games have had higher ratings than NBA games on network and cable/streaming tv.

But here's why I say that the W is severely undervalued: The W's tv demographics brings in higher percentages of the types of viewers advertisers crave, viewers that don't watch the NBA. They're in an unique position wholly different than the NBA's.

Currently, the W plays 40 regular season games and the NBA plays 82. The W has already announced an increase in games starting next season. Team expansion begins next year with new teams paying $50 million or so to join. The point here is that the W is on a launching pad headed for the stratosphere based on the numbers they're already doing, and there's still another flock of already household-popular college players heading for the league over the next few years.

Maybe my $2 billion valuation is high, but in no reality is the skyrocketing W only worth 3% of the NBA's total. I feel that I'm on very firm ground by positing that the W will be worth no less than 30-40% of the NBA's media valuation within the next 5-10 years. The numbers are already trending in that direction with nothing to stop them.

Watching Angel, and Chennedy dismantle the Fever this year has been glorious.

The Fever have beaten the Sky 2 out of 3 games this season with one left to play, so I have no idea what you're watching wherever you are.

There are numerous reasons why CC didn't get chosen for the Olympic team this year, most of all she had a tough beginning to the season after coming off 40 games of college play with only 30 days to integrate into a new team with no time off.

While most are attracted to her because of her shooting, she's leading the league in assists and set the rookie records for a single game and a full season with 14 or so games left to play.

And lastly - as mentioned above - the All Star team housed the Olympic team as Arike went off in the 2nd half embarrassing Team USA, putting them in a 20+ point deficit before Team USA made a charge at the end after the game was decided. Caitlin and Angel played together as CC dimed Angel for an uncontested lay in, after which they shared a dap while running back up the floor on defense.

You want any city team from a male sport? They have it by the hundreds in every store. 1/3 value of the NBA? That's a very serious stretch.

I don't think so. CC is the closest thing to Tiger Woods that's ever come along. Her fans span all ages, and children simply can't get enough and drag their parents to games and make them buy the gear and grandmas and grandpas love her too. Granted, every team can't have a CC, but when locals flock to her road games they can't help but notice that their own team has some really good basketball players too. And to go further, most other teams are charging premium prices for Fever games and/or moving these games to the largest arenas they can find. And I'm sure many franchises will only sell Fever games to those buying season ticket packages - like was done for Jordan and Steph at the heights of their popularity.

A single CC game at capacity is already worth millions to the teams she visits, and as she eventually finds her shooting touch in the W, she'll be like Steph Curry is in the NBA. Not to mention she's the first W player ever to have prop bets on the gambling sites. And they're raking in dough too with record handles on her game action.

I keep saying that I'm not going to miss any games because there's one coming soon where everyone will say is her real coming out game - where she scores 40+ points with shots from the logos, like she often did in college.

As it's said, a rising tide lifts all boats. You can go back and check what I predicted after the draft. CC will likely become the first female sports star to become a billionaire due to her off-court earnings. Her off court earnings are already well into 8 figures 4 months into her professional career and she already had a start because of college NIL.

But again, it's all informed speculation on my part. Only time will tell. But there's no way the W isn't worth at least a billion per year in the next couple of years. CC is truly a golden goose and all W players are going to love the golden eggs coming to them very, very soon.

Oh, and watch her signature shoe from Nike become their best seller as soon as it comes out. She's headed for LeBron type shoe/gear contract numbers if I'm correct.

she's a black man in a highly racist sport.
No.

Jesus. She's a white hetero woman in a league dominated by blacks and lesbians.

Yes.

But ultimately, it's not about the sport, it's about the numbers CC and Tiger brought to their sports who weren't especially fans before. Look at the freaking numbers, I'm not making this up.

People turn on the tv or travel great distances to watch her play in numbers both advertisers and tv executives can't find in other places. And her halo effect lifts the profile of other players by being associated with her. Angel Reese is a perfect example. When 12.3 million tuned in to watch Iowa versus LSU in the 2023 Final Four, Angel Reese used the platform to catapult her brand and become a counterfoil to CC. At that time, the world was unfamiliar with Angel, but they knew CC. If Angel didn't have CC to play off of, her profile would be a fraction of what it is today. And good for her, I'm not faulting her, I'm applauding her.

Numbers don't lie. Fever games have broken 10 all-time tv viewership records in half a season for a team under .500. Just imagine what they'll look like after the young team gels and CC finally breaks out of her shooting slump. The sky is really the limit.

You're going with the WNBA Player Union valuation lol.

I don't think you're understanding what these valuations are. They're not what the franchises are worth, they are what the media rights are worth - ie., what outlets are willing to pay to air their games.

The W is outdrawing NBA games on tv as we speak, or at least the Fever are, and it isn't even close. The Fever are outdrawing the Pacers by THOUSANDS per game with no end in sight due to Indianapolis' proximity to Iowa, her home base of fans.

THAT is why I'm saying that the W's media rights should be about 1/3 of the NBA's, not 3% as it is now. Of course, individual franchise values are nowhere near as high, nor should they be. $50 million is what Golden State is paying for their new W team. If the NBA itself expanded, the expansion fee would likely be $2 billion or higher especially for a team located in Vegas as predicted.

No, what I'm telling you that CC is a unicorn - a transcendent player that only comes along once or twice in a generation.

And due to the fact that her effective shooting range is farther out than almost every other player in either the W or the NBA but for a handful of already household names, AND she's one of the most prolific and creative passers the women's game has ever seen, on top of having 3 million followers on Instagram while 42% of adult Americans view her positively (with males it's 49%),

Here's another example of the CC and friends effect on the WNBA team values:

You're selling the Straight White Hope.

I'm not 'selling' anything. CC has already been bought by more fans than you realize.

When LeBron, Steph, and Tiger are the only sports figures more popular than you, you're already sold.

And for the record, it HELPS that CC is white, but being white isn't the primary reason for her popularity alone. It's her learned skills and abilities that drive her popularity, ie., she's hella-fun to watch play the game - just like Steph is - because she does things that few players, male or female, can do at the level she does it.

Just like Tiger Woods, LeBron James, and Steph Curry - each of whom happens to be black. So if anything, her being white makes her an outlier, at least for the top 4.

And please understand that in this entire thread, my comments about race and orientation have been related to how those paying the big bucks for sponsorship and broadcasting rights look to hit their targeted demographics. In this vein, race might increase popularity, decrease popularity or have little effect on popularity because the star transcends race - again, like LeBron, Steph and Tiger.

you have only 40 games

As I already mentioned, the number of games will increase starting next season before the new deal kicks in. I think the eventual target will land on 50-60 or so games so that their season won't overlap the NBA's.

And on your regionalization argument, this is anything area where the W right now has more national tv partners than does the NBA. And a couple of the networks program for women, not men, and these outlets are seeing record viewerships for Fever games, numbers they never see with their scheduled programming.

I'm not pulling my argument out of my ass, I'm making fairly educated observations and predictions based on what's already set in motion unbeknownst to those who aren't fans.

Whoever said no one would know CC in 10 years clearly doesn't understand how broad CC's popularity is. Unless she suffers a career-threatening/ending injury, she's going to be as obsequious as the few stars more popular than she is now when they were 10 years into their careers.

...this is the area...

Not obsequious, omnipresent.

I do have to say the name The Straight White Hope is one of the funniest things I've heard in quite a while! I'm not sure who coined it, I only saw Sitz commenting on it too.

And BTW, the Fever played the Phoenix Mercury tonight on ION. Caitlin Clark had 29 points, 10 assists, and 5 rebounds tonight against Diana Taurasi and Brittney Griner as the Fever won 98-89 in a 40-minute game. And for those who don't know, the NBA men play a 48 minute game, so always keep that in mind when trying to compare statistics between players of both leagues. To be proportionally equal, take the W player's stats and multiply them by 1.2 to compensate for the minutes per game difference between the leagues.

As a guard, CC has 10 double doubles (and 1 triple double) after tonight with 13 games left. The all-time season record for guards is 11.

I am understanding. I even know it's actually the Superstar Effect, not the Tiger Woods Effect.

I said what I meant. I wasn't talking about a topic, I was speaking to the actual effect caused by Tiger Woods himself that catapulted golf broadcasting and sponsorship rights into the stratosphere. There has not been a singular sportsperson in any sport who changed the landscape more than he did as it regards enriching his sport and his fellow players, period.

You're saying what the WNBA Union Rep said, after the deal was signed. To paraphrase, it's 10x more valuable than the deal signed.

Honestly, I've never read any details of what this person said. Everything I've been relating in this thread has come from my own back-of-the-envelope calculations and estimates.

In a league that used to have 20 teams, and attendance numbers only 17% lower than the Fever's current numbers, decades before the white savior came to uplift the sport.

You've never understood where I'm coming from because you keep looking backwards while I'm look forwards. Let me explain.

I don't know how many times you keep mentioning attendance figures. They mean almost ZERO in my calculations, because TODAY, due to streaming and social media, each team's "market" is the GLOBE, not simply the city or region the team plays in. The WNBA's current growth cycle is tied to global eyeballs, not just butts sitting in arenas. Heretofore, it was always local popularity which drove attendance. Today, it's internet/tv eyeballs that eventually lead to more butts in seats EVERYWHERE, not just for CC games.

And you've forgotten the new fiscal reality: Teams make more money from media rights than they do from attendance. CC became globally popular playing in the middle of Iowa for 4 years. Why? Because 99% of her fans watched her on tv and on the internet and social media hits. Translated to today, she's obviously a Pied Piper when it comes to drawing fans for her road games, unlike any other W player living or past. It's simply in the numbers and the numbers will only grow.

As "her fans," and obviously fans of the local teams that want to see CC and the Fever get beat, sop up tickets in every market, two ancillary things are happening simultaneously. 1) Although directly or indirectly brought to the game by CC, these fans grow to enjoy the competition beyond just CC games, leading to 2) When almost every CC game is broadcast nationally, people tuning in will also watch every other entertaining player on the league's other teams whom the Fever play, and those team's players will become more famous and popular due to the additional exposure they wouldn't have received if not for the confluence of events.

The eyeballs watching all of the league's teams will continue to grow - and the media rights will continue to become more valuable. I can't repeat this enough - CC and the W are at this moment bringing more viewers to their regular season nationally televised games than the NBA does outside of prime time "spotlight" games on ABC.

And due to the way the W breaks up its schedule where on most nights only 4 to 8 teams might be playing instead of 20-30 teams in the NBA, they can offer more national games amongst the most popular teams on a weekly basis than you'd naturally think a 40 game schedule would allow and they concentrate eyeballs on fewer teams, thus maximizing ratings where NBA teams dilute them with regional coverage - that pays far less for games than do national/international outlets.

And lastly, what the W has now that it didn't in the Comets heyday is the attention of kids enthralled by CC's shooting ability, just like they are with Steph's. And many of these kids drag parents/grandparents to games today, but in 10 years will be going themselves or indoctrinating their own children into what they'd grown to love over the years. Again, the internet and social media is full of stories about player's lives and millions lap it up on a daily basis. Hell, people now tune in NBA TV just to see what clothes and outfits players are wearing to the game. Both the W and NBA have popularized a veritable "red carpet" every single night - showing another aspect of media popularity that never existed before.

I never turned on the tv in the 90s to find Cynthia Cooper or Sheryl Swoopes doing Gatorade commercials as I watched the news or non-sports programming like we see today. What CC and her fellow players have today that wasn't the case earlier is global popularity. And as that popularity grows, so will interest in their games. And as interest grows, so will tv/streaming ratings of live broadcasts - the Holy Grail for media outlets. And as more people watch games on multiple platforms, more people will be interested in attending games in person - all across the league. In my calculations, attendance is the trailing indicator, not the lead. Ratings is king.