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Marcus Johnson (00:00):

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(00:39):

Hey, gang, it's Monday, October 27th. Paola, Marisa, and listeners welcome to Behind the Numbers, an EMARKETER video podcast made possible by Fetch. I'm Marcus, and joining me for today's conversation, we have two New York-based folks. We have graphics analyst, it's Paola Flores-Marquez.

Paola Flores-Marquez (00:56):

Hello.

Marcus Johnson (00:57):

Hello there. And we also have one of our analysts, Marisa Jones.

Marisa Jones (01:01):

Hi, Marcus. Thank you for having me.

Marcus Johnson (01:03):

Absolutely. Today's fact: What is the Pulitzer Prize and where did it come from? So I just read To Kill a Mockingbird for the first time by Harper Lee. And then I read All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, I think is how you pronounce his name, which I didn't realize until after finishing them that they both won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 1961 and 2015, respectively. So I was wondering about the origins of this prize, and so the Pulitzer Prize, most prestigious award in America for excellence in journalism, literature, and music. It originated from the 1904 will of Joseph Pulitzer, Hungarian-American politician and a newspaper publisher of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the New York World. He left funds to Columbia University to establish the prizes and the first school of journalism. The prizes were awarded starting in 1917. It's a long time.

Paola Flores-Marquez (02:14):

You have such a good taste in books. Mine are just like fantasy novels. Mine are just like...

Marcus Johnson (02:16):

Yeah, normally mine are that or historical fiction, I guess. But my mom recommended All the Light We Cannot See, so I won't take credit for that. And somebody else, another friend of mine, suggested that I read To Kill a Mockingbird, so I can't take credit, but they were brilliant. Have you guys read All the Light?

Paola Flores-Marquez (02:33):

I haven't read that. I read To Kill a Mockingbird, and then I think I read of my favorite Pulitzer books, the Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, I think that also won the Pulitzer, and I love that book.

Marcus Johnson (02:44):

Yes, that one did actually, yes, I was looking at this, yeah. I've never been stopped more and asked about a book than when I was reading All the Light We Cannot See. Twice, two or three times every single day, someone either wanted to read or had read it.

Paola Flores-Marquez (03:00):

All right, all right. Now I just want to meet people, carry it around just for that.

Marcus Johnson (03:05):

Yeah, it's absolutely a conversation piece. Anyway, today's real topic: How the WNBA is changing sports audiences.

(03:18):

So a record-breaking 2025 WNBA season just wrapped up with the Las Vegas Aces sweeping, get your brooms out the Phoenix Mercury as A'ja Wilson secured her third title and fourth MVP award furthering her case as the GOAT.

(03:36):

The league had a lot to be happy about, Andrew McCarthy of Athlon Sports notes. The WNBA averaged 1.3 million viewers, which is up 6% year-over-year, marking the most watched WNBA regular season on ESPN networks. It was also the most watched WNBA post-season on ESPN, averaging 1.2 million viewers, up 5% year-over-year, and the finals averaged 1.5 million viewers across the four games, making it the second-most watched WNBA finals ever on ESPN, behind only 2024, last year, when the Liberty, New York Liberty won. Marisa, I'll start with you, what's your take on this year's WNBA viewership numbers?

Marisa Jones (04:22):

I think viewership is showing just that there is such an increased interest in this league and that it's a trend that we really aren't expecting to go anywhere soon. We see last year the Caitlin Clark effect, which a lot of people assuming that Caitlin Clark's popularity is kind of the reason for these strong viewership numbers, but we're seeing that she was notably absent due to injuries this season. So this is kind of reflecting, in my opinion, a broader truth that women's sports isn't just a temporary trend that's going to fade in relevance for viewers and advertisers; it's something that is increasingly of interest to audiences, and I think as we're seeing the WNBA strike deals with platforms like Prime Video and other streamers, that's really only going to allow this growth to continue trending upward.

Marcus Johnson (05:12):

Pao?

Paola Flores-Marquez (05:13):

Yeah, I completely agree, especially with the last piece. I think access plays such a huge role in people's ability to dive into this interest in hobby and trend. I think we've talked about before about how fragmented watching sports can be and how difficult it can be to access them. So the more that people are able to engage with it, not just on through television but in social media and then in their local spaces, the more that combines to be a greater cultural touch point. So it's really exciting to see now.

Marcus Johnson (05:46):

To circle back to your point about the Caitlin Clark effect, I think next year we'll get another huge boost because, as you mentioned, she won't miss almost the entire season as she did this year. She played only 13 of the 44 games, regular season games, after suffering the groin injury. There was an article by Javier Ruiz of Marca, was titled, the WNBA No Longer Needs Caitlin Clark, but I don't agree. I think that it was able to grow incrementally as you saw from those numbers, 5%, 6% growth of the regular season playoffs, but I think you're going to need her to register another win for, and there's two pieces of evidence here, I think. One, exhibit A, Caitlin Clark's impact hasn't been limited to the screens. According to Sports Illustrated, she drove 27% of the league's economic activity in 2024 through merch sales, tickets, and sponsorships, and that is what former player and now TV broadcaster Debbie Antonelli calls Clarkonomics, the economic impact that Caitlin has had on basketball.

(06:50):

And she created that momentum obviously the year before with a WNBA debut game in 2024 drawing 2.1 million viewers. That's the most watched WNBA broadcast in 23 years, and the draft she was in that year had four times the number of viewers than the previous year. So I think that's a huge part.

(07:09):

And then it's fascinating to see exhibit B, what happens when Caitlin stops playing. And we got a flavor of that this year after the 13th game when she went down. After her season-ending injury in July, viewership for nationally televised games was cut in half. I know I stopped watching not all of the games, but more. So I'm an Indiana Fever fan as of when she joined the league, and so her not being in the league definitely led myself and others to kind of step back a bit. So I think you're going to get another significant bump next year when she's there for the full season.

Paola Flores-Marquez (07:42):

Where is your solidarity with your team, Marcus? What is this?

Marcus Johnson (07:46):

[inaudible 00:07:46]. I did continue watching. It was not as much, I wasn't as invested because she got me invested in the game, but there were a lot of other exciting moments to watch and players to follow with Kelsey Mitchell and Aliyah Boston and so, but I think a lot of people started watching the W for Caitlin.

Paola Flores-Marquez (08:10):

I mean, for better or worse, star power is always going to be a draw, right? You want a recognizable face and a recognizable brand, so that absolutely makes sense.

Marcus Johnson (08:20):

And those faces showing up more and more not just on the screen during live games, but on social media and folks engaging that way.

(08:31):

Looking at the men's game for a second, senior director of briefing is Jeremy Goldman, noting that the 2025 NBA finals between the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Indiana Pacers averaged just 10.2 million viewers according to Nielsen, which is amongst the lowest in recent history. But he says it wasn't a lack of interest in basketball that caused the decline; rather, it represents systematic changes in the way and places that viewers, particularly younger ones, decide to watch live sports. Pao, will social media derail full game viewership growth of the men's game or the women's one?

Paola Flores-Marquez (09:02):

I don't think so. Not at all. I mean, you see it somewhat with television, but one thing that I think a lot of major networks had to learn the hard way is that they kept thinking that they were competing with YouTube or they were competing with social media. But it's not that; it's that those become parts of your arsenal. You have to be promoting cross channel, and it doesn't take away from people's interest in consuming the entire piece, especially if they are diehard fans. It kind of comes down to is it something worth watching? And that's more on the game itself than it is on the channels.

Marcus Johnson (09:35):

I thought that younger people would've watched more highlights than live games, but they don't. There's some research here you can see from this chart from Altman Solon looking at the average time spent per week watching live sports versus highlights worldwide by age, and it's a lot closer, it's a closer contest between those two formats. For younger folks with young people 18 to 24, well, actually, you could say 34 as well, basically young people watching about four-ish, three to four-ish hours of live games versus closer to... so about four hours for live games, about three hours for highlights, so less, but for the older folks, they watch significantly more live sports content. So I was fascinated to kind of learn that.

Paola Flores-Marquez (10:21):

I think we touched on this a couple of weeks ago too on the Gen Z podcast where it's like there is still a craving for live experiences. I mean, these obviously are not all in person, but it still offers a communal opportunity to be amongst people and be together and watch them together. There's a basic interest in the sport and wanting to consume it, and then there's also the feeling of community that it brings. And Gen Z, I think, craves that a little bit more intensely than us right now because they're in that stage where they're very nostalgic for pre-phones and pre-social media. So I think that's a little bit of it as well.

Marcus Johnson (10:56):

Yeah, yeah, Marisa, do you think that the growth of social media and the changing viewership behaviors in terms of where they're consuming sports could potentially hinder this surge of WNBA viewership?

Marisa Jones (11:13):

I would agree that it not is necessarily going to be a detriment to it; I think it really just matters how women in sports adapts to the shift to digital, especially in reaching younger audiences. Using social content and diversifying distribution is really going to be key at expanding presence to social platforms and, of course, streaming services as people shift to streaming platforms through things like making live games and highlights available on these platforms will reach younger consumers and really help drive growth as people prefer digital consumption. Embracing social media engagement, actively sharing this content on social media and behind the scenes will not only drive viewers to engage more with the sport, but it could in turn drive viewers to watching live broadcasts, whether that's on cable or on streaming platforms. And I think that will... embracing that shift will help women's sports and all sports really grow.

Paola Flores-Marquez (12:13):

And it reaches a wider audience too when you tap into those channels. Your algorithm will suggest things to you that are tangentially related and suddenly you're like, "Actually, yeah, I really love this. I want to go see a Liberty game," which I did, I did do that.

Marcus Johnson (12:26):

You did, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Paola Flores-Marquez (12:26):

Yeah, sample size of one.

Marcus Johnson (12:28):

Nice. Was that this year or last year when they won the title?

Paola Flores-Marquez (12:31):

I went earlier this year.

Marcus Johnson (12:32):

Oh, this year. Nice, okay. Well, speaking about those expanding audiences, the WNBA is also getting not just the boost from Caitlin, but they're also adding expansion teams. So the league is growing as well. There are more teams, there're pulling in more fans, and there will be more games to tune into as a result of that. They have expansion teams in Portland and Toronto that will be joining the league next year, and then they've got Cleveland, Detroit, and Philly teams joining 2028, 2029, and 2030. And by just 2027, there's the collective, which is one source estimating that the WNBA viewership will jump over 30% from 2024 to 2027. That's before those other extra teams join the fray.

(13:26):

Also, really quickly, Jeremy's point about low NBA viewership numbers. Part of that, as he points out in the piece, could be down to the fact that there were smaller markets in the finals. It was Oklahoma City and it was Indiana. He said Oklahoma City is the 47th largest TV market in the country and Indiana is the 25th, so that could have also contributed to it. It wasn't like New York or LA or whoever were, Chicago were in the finals.

(13:59):

Marisa, you recently wrote that women's sports surging, presenting an opportunity for advertisers, highlighted by a lot of the numbers that we've mentioned. What should advertisers be paying attention to the most amidst this surge?

Marisa Jones (14:15):

There's a lot to look at, but I think the one I'll focus on is just how effective advertising during women's sports is. We're seeing these ads showing a 40% greater impact on consumer engagement compared with the average primetime TV ad, which is a 56% year-over-year jump. That's according to EDL. So I really think advertisers needs to be paying attention to sponsorships in women's sports, capitalizing on this heightened engagement, and seeing women's sports as a long-term investment. Early adopters, especially for advertisers, as women's sports is still gaining popularity, are going to see a lot of benefits before this becomes a more saturated market and mainstream.

Marcus Johnson (14:58):

I mean, for me, I think that's a great one. For me, it was--we've kind of touched on this already, but I think it's worth reiterating as a point for advertisers to pay particularly attention to--sports happens beyond the game itself.

(15:12):

And Jeremy was saying, in a media world shaped by digital habits and shifting generational preferences, TV ratings alone no longer capture the full picture of sports reach or relevance. And two folks here cited Tamon George, both of these [inaudible 00:15:27] Adweek piece. Tamon George, co-founder and CEO of Creative Theory Agency, thinks that in the digital age, what happens outside the game can be just as compelling to audiences. And Doug Rozen, president of Cadent, saying, "Whether it's a Super Bowl or the Olympics, few advertisers can afford those marquee moments, but that's okay because sports isn't a game just consumed on the field. Lots of avenues to get your content out there. From fantasy teams to sports betting to viral clips on social media, Travis Kelsey and Taylor Swift, sports moments are embedded in our culture." I think it was a good point.

Paola Flores-Marquez (15:57):

May I share my favorite stat...

Marcus Johnson (15:59):

Please.

Paola Flores-Marquez (16:00):

... from Marisa's article? The point about how women lead in content volume across platforms, but engagement is mostly led by men. I thought that was really fascinating. And even more fascinating-

Marcus Johnson (16:10):

And it's different for the platforms as well, right? Certain platforms-

Paola Flores-Marquez (16:12):

That was my next point, yes.

Marcus Johnson (16:12):

Okay, please.

Paola Flores-Marquez (16:13):

I think it's very, very indicative of when you're investing in these platforms to perform, you need to know who your audience is. And so TikTok is very, very female-dominated in general too, it's very Gen Z-heavy and it's very female-heavy, so if that's the audience you're targeting, that's where you're going to find it. And so yeah, you just got to make sure to tailor content to that.

Marcus Johnson (16:34):

[inaudible 00:16:34].

Paola Flores-Marquez (16:34):

And our forecast help with that if anybody needs help.

Marcus Johnson (16:33):

Yeah, yeah they do. Yeah, I mean, looking at women's live sports viewership in the US, we have those numbers, and it's doubled. Women's live sports viewership in the US has more than doubled, I shouldn't say doubled, in the past three years. So it has gone from 2 million folks watching to 5 million folks from 2022 to 2025 according to that forecasting team that Paola was just referencing. And the dollars following too. By the summer, this past summer, Disney ad revenue from the WNBA had grown 70% compared to last season. So the dollars showing up.

(17:15):

In that piece, Marisa, you had a bunch of stats about WNBA social media engagement skyrocketing in 2024. You mentioned the 2 billion video views across social, the four times previous year WNBA app monthly active users, TikTok views, sorry, both up over 250% year-over-year. So the stat, I mean, you can't move for stats on how explosive the growth is in this space. Any other thoughts in terms of advertisers and what things they should be keying into?

Marisa Jones (17:49):

I would say beyond Caitlin Clark, look at popular athletes. Consumers connect with these athletes and are likely to purchase products or look into brands that are sponsored by these athletes. So look at the full slate, see who consumers are really connecting with, and go from there.

Paola Flores-Marquez (18:08):

I would also try to make sure that when it comes to a lot of this interactive content or merchandise to keep it at a price point that's affordable for younger generations because you're trying to invest in them to be long-term fans. And not everyone can afford extensive or really expensive merchandise, but they want to participate. That's part of the fandom. So you want to make sure that there's accessible entry points for those younger fans.

Marcus Johnson (18:32):

Yeah, yeah, both great points. We'll be talking a lot about the WNBA for this episode, but a lot of other women's sports with some incredibly prolific athletes to pay attention to and work with potentially.

(18:44):

I'll end, Marisa, by quoting you in one of your pieces, I thought is a great point. Basically, don't miss the boat on this, I think is what you're saying here, and you say, "Advertisers looking to reach tuned-in audiences at a lower cost of entry should view sports advertising opportunities like soccer and women's sports as critical investments, not a last resort," you say. "As engagement with smaller name sports climbs thanks to growing media coverage and strong community fandoms, early movers can secure premium ad placements before costs surge. Brands that align with sports now benefit..." And I really love this piece. "Brands that align with sports now benefit from a passionate loyal fan base whilst positioning themselves [inaudible 00:19:29] to ride momentum in the years ahead." This is only going up.

Paola Flores-Marquez (19:33):

Yeah, absolutely.

Marcus Johnson (19:34):

So again, get in now whilst you can. That's what we've got time for for this episode. But thank you so much to my guests. Thank you to Paola.

Paola Flores-Marquez (19:42):

Thank you so much, Marcus. This was fun.

Marcus Johnson (19:44):

Yes, indeed. And to Marisa.

Marisa Jones (19:45):

Yeah, thank you for having me.

Marcus Johnson (19:46):

Absolutely. And thanks to the whole editing crew and to everyone for listening to Behind the Numbers, an EMARKETER video podcast made possible by Fetch. Like, subscribe, share, review, rate, all those things, please. If you have a moment tomorrow, you can spend a little time with Susie David Canyon as she talks on the Reimagining Retail show about our top eight most interesting retailers of the month list for October.