Record All-Star Crowd Caps A Historic First Half For The WNBA Season

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS - JULY 24: A elaborate position of the tribunal is seen anterior to the Kia Skills Challenge and STARRY 3-Point Contest during the AT&T WNBA All-Star 2026 astatine Wintrust Arena connected July 24, 2026 successful Chicago, Illinois. (Photo by Geoff Stellfox/Getty Images)

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On Saturday nighttime astatine the United Center successful Chicago, 19,783 fans attended the WNBA All-Star game, the largest crowd successful arena history, surpassing the 2007 grounds of 19,487 fans. It was also, remarkably, much successful attendance than the NBA drew to its ain All-Star Game this year, erstwhile 15,973 fans attended the NBA arena astatine the Los Angeles Clippers’ Intuit Dome successful February. It is the first clip successful history that the WNBA has outdrawn the NBA astatine the All-Star Game.

While the Intuit Dome caps retired astatine astir 18,000 for hoops and the United Center holds astir 21,000, moreover a sold-out Intuit Dome would not person matched Saturday’s crowd successful Chicago. And it is worthy noting that Chicago didn’t person a azygous hometown Sky subordinate successful the All-Star game.

A Show Worthy Of A Crowd

Team Spoon, which was assembled by Hall of Famer Teresa Weatherspoon successful this year's legends-as-general-managers format, hit Cynthia Cooper's Team Coop 129-122. New York Liberty halfway Jonquel Jones earned MVP honors disconnected the chair pinch 22 points, 13 rebounds and 8 assists, narrowly missing conscionable the 2nd triple-double successful All-Star Game history, and dedicated the grant to her precocious aunt, whose memorial was held that aforesaid day.

Caitlin Clark added 17 points which consisted of immoderate heavy threes that helped her squad amass an early lead. Kelsey Mitchell led each scorers pinch 28 for Team Coop, while rookie Olivia Miles posted a double-double. And Seattle’s Nneka Ogwumike softly made history of her ain arsenic she passed Maya Moore to go the All-Star Game's all-time starring scorer successful her 11th All-Star appearance.

Record Crowd Is No Outlier

If the All-Star attendance grounds were an isolated information point, immoderate whitethorn find the grounds to disregard it arsenic a one-night arena successful a large NBA building. Instead, the fame of the arena serves arsenic the hallmark of a first half of a WNBA regular play that has surpassed adjacent to each benchmark the convention has collected complete the erstwhile decades.

Speaking astatine the All-Star play property conference, Commissioner Cathy Engelbert declared that 2026 is "already the most-watched WNBA play of each time" astatine the halfway mark. Engelbert noted that the convention has reached much than 73 cardinal unsocial viewers done 117 nationalist broadcasts. For context, according to Engelbert, viewership reached 63 cardinal crossed each of past season, which was a grounds astatine that clip arsenic well. So far, twenty-nine WNBA games person averaged much than a cardinal viewers earlier the All-Star break. Last season, eleven games deed those totals crossed the full season. In summation to grounds viewership, league-wide attendance is besides up 16 percent.

Key individual information points:

• The WNBA play opened pinch 2.49 cardinal viewers for the Wings vs. Fever matchup connected ABC, the league's fourth-largest assemblage of immoderate benignant since 2000.
• In mid-July, the Fever vs. Aces matchup drew astir 2.64 million, and days later the Liberty vs. Fever matchup averaged 2.58 cardinal connected CBS pinch a highest supra 3 million.
• Earlier this month, the Toronto Tempo drew 20,996 fans to Montreal's Bell Centre for a crippled against Dallas, which is simply a regular-season single-game attendance record.

Investment Leads to Growth

Preferences do not create successful isolation of accordant investment, marketing, promotion, and prime-time broadcast slots. Part of the sustained maturation successful viewership and attendance crossed the existent WNBA play is owed to the continued increases successful wide investment and strategical broadcast windows. In its 30th season, the WNBA and its networks person placed a grounds 216 of its 330 regular-season games connected nationalist television, dispersed crossed a roster of partners that include: ABC/ESPN, NBC/Peacock, CBS, Prime Video, ION, USA Network and NBA TV.

The convention besides continues to put successful its astir important asset, the players. While the existent WNBA play astir didn’t return spot owed to a prolonged corporate bargaining conflict that stretched heavy into the offseason, the convention and the players’ national were capable to scope a historical woody featuring awesome net increases and a caller revenue-sharing structure. Although critics based on that the players whitethorn beryllium asking for excessively much, the players held beardown successful their stake that the merchandise was worthy much than they were being paid. Given that we are now halfway done the most-watched, best-attended play successful convention history (one that conscionable outdrew the NBA connected its ain All-Star weekend) it would look that their stake was perfectly correct.