NEW YORK — The WNBA is nearly doubling its national TV exposure with a multiyear deal with CBS Sports.
CBS Sports Network will broadcast 40 WNBA games — including five Chicago Sky games — beginning next month when the season opens.
“Through our partnership with CBS Sports Network, the WNBA is joining an elite lineup of premium sports programming,” said NBA Commissioner Adam Silver. “We thank CBS Sports for making such a meaningful commitment to women’s basketball and for providing another platform to showcase the world-class athletes of the WNBA.”
The league, which will begin its 23rd season on May 24, also has a deal with ESPN to show 16 regular season telecasts, including three on ABC. Last year, the WNBA had a strong regular season with combined average viewership across ESPN2 and NBA TV up 31% over 2018.
The first game on the CBS Sports Network will be the Sky’s season opener against the Minnesota Lynx on May 25. The Sky will return to the TV channel when they face former league MVP Elena Delle Donne and the Washington Mystics on June 5, and again on July 10 when they host the Lynx at Wintrust Arena.
The Sky’s last two games on CBS Sports will be the their Aug. 9 game against the Las Vegas Aces and Chicago’s Aug. 16 contest verses the Los Angeles Sparks.
CBS Sports will use local broadcast feeds for now, similar to what NBA TV does in showing WNBA games. NBA TV showed 49 games last year.
“We are truly excited to partner with the WNBA, bringing the country’s premier women’s sports league to CBS Sports Network. This partnership is one of the biggest and most impactful women’s sports programming arrangements ever at CBS Sports, offering national exposure of 40 games per year,” said CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus. “This agreement provides great live content throughout the summer in primetime and on weekends, and aligns two great brands in the WNBA and CBS Sports. We look forward to working with the WNBA for many years to come.”
CBS executive vice president of programming Dan Weinberg said the WNBA was exactly what CBS was looking for to bolster its schedule.
“We are looking to partner with established brands that are growing with dedicated fan bases,” he said in a phone interview. “The WNBA checks every one of those boxes. (Playing in the) Spring-Summer lends itself to our programming schedule. We are clearly and obviously talking about the best basketball players in the world at the highest level. Associating ourselves with WNBA, it’s a great powerful established brand with popularity across the country.”
The sides are still discussing expanding the coverage to include features and other WNBA programming.
“It’s going to be beyond highlights,” said David Denenberg, who is the Senior Vice President, Global Media Distribution and Business Affairs for the NBA Entertainment. “Whether it’s features we develop or CBS develops we want to do more.”
It’s unclear how the WNBA will decide which games will air on ESPN or CBS going forward after this year. The league didn’t seem too concerned.
“Suffice it to say we have enough games we think we’ll put together a robust schedule for everyone,” Denenberg said. “We’ll announce the CBS schedule, ESPN schedule. I think we’re going to well serve all our partners.”
