The WNBA enters its 27th regular season this year. In partnership with ESPN, the season tips off on Friday, May 19, 2023! Twenty-five national broadcasts during the regular season will be seen across ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2. In total, the WNBA will collaborate with ESPN to present up to 52 possible games, extending through the WNBA Playoffs presented by Google. Additionally, the AT&T WNBA All-Star Game in Las Vegas will air for the first time on primetime on ABC.
Additional coverage will also be provided by WNBA Countdown presented by Google – which is ESPN’s pregame show that was first introduced in the WNBA’s postseason in 2022. This segment will not be available throughout the regular season with at least 10 editions immediately preceding game broadcasts.
“As we get set to tip off our 27th season, ESPN is once again stepping up as an incredibly engaged broadcast partner for the WNBA,” said WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert. “We are grateful that ESPN will provide significant opportunities to tell the stories of the incredible players across the league in 2023. From tip-off weekend through the highly anticipated postseason, ESPN and Google will continue to serve our growing fan base and deliver a robust national platform for WNBA players with game broadcasts and new, regular-season pregame shows.”
The ABC/ESPN/ESPN2 broadcast schedule gets underway on Friday, May 19, as part of WNBA Tip-Off presented by CarMax when Brittney Griner, an eight-time WNBA All-Star selection and two-time Kia WNBA Defensive Player of the Year, and Diana Taurasi, the WNBA’s career scoring leader and a three-time league champion now entering her 19th season, lead the Phoenix Mercury against the Los Angeles Sparks. The Sparks’ revamped roster includes 2016 WNBA MVP Nneka Ogwumike and veteran acquisitions Azurá Stevens and Jasmine Thomas. That game will air on ESPN and stream on ESPN+ at 8 p.m. PT (11 p.m. ET), marking the first time a WNBA game will be available on the ESPN streaming service.
“It’s been refreshing to see women’s sports getting more of the attention it deserves over the past year and a half,” said Kate Johnson, Director of Global Sports & Entertainment Marketing Partnerships, Content and Media at Google. “We’re passionate about elevating coverage of women athletes and as we enter our third year as a WNBA Changemaker, continuing to work side by side with the WNBA and EPSN to air more nationally televised games is something we’re extremely proud of. We’ll continue to challenge ourselves and others to raise the bar for representing women’s sports equitably.”
Echoing Kate Johnson’s sentiment, it truly is refreshing to witness not only the visibility but the elevation of women’s sports. As a former athlete, and devoted sports enthusiast and fan, representation matters. Many have voiced their concern about the WNBA’s viewership, and I believe these are the right steps to take. It’s not that “nobody is watching the WNBA” – because having attended regular season games and Playoff games I’ve seen how electrifying it gets in those arenas – it’s that many don’t have frequent access to them. So, bravo to ESPN for setting the tone in WNBA coverage.
