The WNBA announced a new 11-year media rights deal on Wednesday that includes partnerships with Disney, Amazon Prime Video and new rights holder NBCUniversal.
The deal is worth about $2.2 billion, or $200 million a year, a source told ESPN, but future agreements with additional partners could bring the league's total media deals to just under $3 billion.
“The partnership with Disney, Amazon and NBCU marks a monumental chapter in the history of the WNBA and clearly demonstrates the significant increase in value and historic interest in women's basketball,” WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in a statement. “These agreements enable the league to continue to build a long-term and sustainable growth model for the future of women's basketball and women's sports that will benefit WNBA players, teams and fans.”
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The Athletic was the first newspaper to report on the value of the deal.
According to a press release, Disney – which owns majority of ESPN – Amazon and NBCU will show more than 125 regular-season and playoff games each season, including at least 25 regular-season games on Disney platforms, 50 on NBCU platforms and 30 on Prime Video. Disney will distribute the games on ABC, ESPN or ESPN2 and stream them on the company's new direct-to-consumer service; NBCU will distribute them on NBC, USA Network and Peacock; and Amazon will distribute them on Prime Video.
Disney will broadcast two first-round playoff series per year, with NBCU and Prime each broadcasting one series, while semifinals and finals will alternate. Disney will broadcast eight semifinal series and five finals, and Prime and NBCU will each broadcast seven semifinals and three finals.
Disney will continue to broadcast the WNBA All-Star events and the WNBA Draft, and Prime will continue to be the home of the Commissioner's Cup championship game.
The WNBA also currently has contracts with CBS and ION that, if renegotiated, could generate at least $60 million in additional revenue and increase the league's total media contracts to six times the current ones.
According to one source, the figures for the new agreements do not include production costs or marketing obligations, which is the case with the figures related to the media contracts for the NWSL ($240 million over four years with four partners) and the MLS ($2.5 billion over 10 years with Apple).
The partners also agreed to review the rights fees after three years and, if necessary, reassess them to ensure fair value, a source added.
