The seismic growth the WNBA enjoyed in 2024 wasn’t limited to a few additional ticket sales or advertising buys.
Rather, the arrival of rookie sensation Caitlin Clark helped transform the NBA’s ‘little sister’ into a sudden bull market with a 50 percent increase in attendance, a 500 percent increase in merchandise sales , upcoming expansion teams and a media deal that will define the brand. valued at 200 million dollars a year.
And with a record 54 million viewers in 2024, including a record 1.18 million per game for Clark’s Indiana Fever, the league also enjoyed a 60 percent increase in sponsors, according to Ad Age.
But the most intriguing metric for anyone betting on the future of the WNBA is, well, betting.
The WNBA, once ignored by NFL and college basketball-obsessed players, saw a four-fold increase. FanDuel during the first 50 games of 2024, the bookmaker’s general manager Karol Corcoran told DailyMail.com.
Caitlin Clark was the subject of 13 percent of all WNBA prop bets on FanDuel in 2024.
And during July, August and September (the heart of the WNBA season), American sportsbooks enjoyed an overall increase of 42.4 percent compared to 2023, as players made $3.24 billion in betting, according to the American Gaming Association (AGA).
Now, Corcoran believes, the WNBA is positioned to compete with North America’s ‘Big Four’ in U.S. sports books.
“We expect interest in betting to continue to correspond with the growing interest in the league,” Corcoran explained in an email to DailyMail.com. “As star players continue to grow their followings and more emerge across the league, we wouldn’t be surprised to see interest in WNBA betting match interest in some of the major traditional leagues.”
Unsurprisingly, most of the WNBA betting has focused on the league’s Rookie of the Year, Clark, who became something of an obsession for standout player and Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy. In the end, the staunch Clark supporter made a doomed $100,000 bet that the Fever, at 100-to-1 odds, would win the WNBA title before Indiana’s loss in the first round of the playoffs.
But Portnoy wasn’t the only player to bet on Clark, who was particularly popular in prop bets.
A league-high 13 percent of WNBA prop bets on FanDuel focused on Clark, seven times what last year’s leader A’Ja Wilson earned in 2023, according to the sportsbook . Meanwhile, Clark’s rookie rival Angel Reese attracted 5 percent of all WNBA prop bets on FanDuel during her impressive rookie season with the Chicago Sky.
Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese proved to be two of the biggest draws in WNBA history in 2024
A’Ja Wilson, one of the biggest stars in the WNBA, has also sparked the interest of online players
Barstool Sports’ Dave Portnoy has become perhaps the highest-profile player in the WNBA
Truth be told, players’ interest in Clark and Reese predates their arrival in the WNBA.
Clark’s Iowa fell to Reese’s LSU in the 2023 NCAA Finals, which remains one of the highest-rated women’s basketball games ever played. And their 2024 rematch in the Elite 8 was even more popular, as a peak audience of 17.3 million viewers watched the Hawkeyes get revenge en route to a Finals loss to South Carolina.
Clark and Reese began attracting interest from players during their NCAA days.
Naturally, the popularity of those games carried over to sports betting houses.
“The growth in betting interest in women’s basketball has been going on for a couple of years, and we really saw it take off during the 2024 March Madness tournament,” Corcoran told DailyMail.com. “Iowa’s Elite Eight, Final Four and National Championship games all broke records for the biggest women’s sports betting events on our platform on their respective days, and we’ve seen that momentum carry over to the WNBA.”
And that momentum has helped crystallize a clear opportunity for both the sportsbooks and the league.
Studies such as the Variety Intelligence Platform 2022 have postulated that sports betting significantly increases the audience of various leagues. In the United States alone, the study revealed, 88 percent of avid gamblers said they watch sports regularly, while only 41 percent of non-gamblers did.
Obviously, that’s good news for the WNBA as more players become familiar with the league.
However, it could mean even more for sportsbooks, which have been dealing primarily with male customers since the Supreme Court paved the way for state-by-state legalization of sports betting in 2018.
According to the AGA’s August survey, approximately a quarter of sports gambling participants are women. Obviously, that leaves significant room for growth, considering that 44 percent of WNBA fans are women, according to a YouGov.com Sports Index survey.
Attendance and merchandise sales increased thanks to stars like Clark, Reese and Cameron Brink.
Sportsbooks are usually a male domain, but that could be changing thanks to the WNBA
Sportsbooks are also directly fueling interest in the league through various promotional offers. At FanDuel, for example, customers who bet on the ‘W’ received a free month of WNBA League Pass to help them stay up to date with Clark & Co.
And now FanDuel plans to increase its offerings for WNBA fans ahead of the 2025 season in anticipation of increased demand.
“As more fans become familiar with the WNBA and the league’s athletes, they are given new opportunities to participate,” Corcoran said. ‘More people are watching the WNBA and customers are looking for real-time betting opportunities. “We are focused on meeting demand and offering our customers the most sophisticated product, with the markets and player accessories they are looking for.”
And as Corcoran sees it, that growth is a two-way street.
“For sports like the WNBA, our investment in expanding our offerings is helping more fans participate and contributing to the growth of the game,” he said.