NEW YORK, NEW YORK – APRIL 15: Angel Reese poses with WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert after being … More selected seventh overall pick by the Chicago Sky during the 2024 WNBA Draft at Brooklyn Academy of Music on April 15, 2024 in New York City. (Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images)
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Paige Bueckers is expected to join the list of first overall picks in the upcoming 2025 WNBA draft. Such an accomplishment would put the University of Connecticut guard, now an NCAA champion, in the company of Caitlin Clark. A record-setting 2.4 million viewers tuned into last year’s draft when the University of Iowa guard was selected first overall by the Indiana Fever.
Bueckers and Clark are the kinds of players that force opposing teams to level up their game. However, on-court performance is only one of the factors that contributes to the WNBA’s growth in the contemporary influencer economy.
With more than 5 million Instagram followers between them, Bueckers (2.2 million) and Clark (3.1 million) are among the biggest brands in a new era of visibility in women’s basketball. There’s just one player whose social media following surpasses them both: Angel Reese.
Reese’s 4.8 million Instagram followers (with another 5.5 million on TikTok), endorsement deals and content creation show that Black women (including more like A’ja Wilson and Candace Parker) are still at the forefront of the WNBA’s growth as an entertainment brand.
A New Era In The WNBA
Caitlin Clark is undoubtedly part of the reason why the WNBA broke multiple viewership and attendance records during the 2024 season. The Rookie of the Year played in both games that became the most watched WNBA matches ever aired on ABC and helped the Indiana Fever set a new single-season home attendance record of 340,715 fans. She also set a new single-season record in assists and was among the league’s top ten scorers.
But in the WNBA’s new era of visibility, some of the best brands grow in more than one space.
The WNBA also reported record high engagement via its app and social media platforms, a space where stars like Reese dominate.
Angel, who became the league’s all-time leader in consecutive double-doubles last year, also extended her reach into fashion and podcasts. She officially announced her plans to enter the draft in an interview with Vogue; and launched Unapologetically Angel in partnership with Playmaker HQ and Shaquille O’Neal’s The Big Podcast Network, last September.
Reese’s brand blossomed before her professional career began. Despite being selected six spots behind Clark in the 2024 draft, Reese entered the league with a portfolio of deals with household names including Reebok, Calvin Klein and PepsiCo.
The Chicago Sky forward is one of the figures facilitating the WNBA’s entry into niche markets. Black woman-founded hair care company, Mielle, announced Angel Reese as a brand ambassador two months before it announced its partnership with the WNBA in July 2023. And in January 2025 McDonald’s announced that Reese would become the first female athlete to have her own branded meal.
Like Reese, other women’s basketball champions are also growing their brands beyond the sport.
LOS ANGELES – FEBRUARY 6: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert and guest A’ja Wilson during Tuesday’s … More February 6, 2024 show. (Photo by Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images)
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Wilson became a New York Times bestselling author in 2024 with the release of her book, Dear Black Girls: How to be True to You. The three-time WNBA MVP also had the next generation of athletes in mind when developing her new shoe and apparel line with Nike.
“From the beginning, we designed the shoe to both accentuate my game and to provide young hoopers a tool to help them push their limits,” she said in a February press release.
One of the women helping to cultivate the league’s budding stars is a basketball legend in her own right. Parker became president of Adidas Women’s Basketball in 2024 and will release her own book, The Can-Do Mindset, in June of this year. In the next chapter of her career, the two-time WNBA MVP says she wants to do more than sell shoes. She wants to make impactful change.
“It’s not just about products,” Parker said in a press release. “It’s about fostering a movement focused on innovation, representation, and access.”
Women’s Basketball In The Influencer Economy
MEDLEY, FLORIDA – JANUARY 17: Shakira Austin #1 of the Lunar Owls drives against Aaliyah Edwards #3 … More of the Mist during the first half at The Mediapro Studio on January 17, 2025 in Medley, Florida. (Photo by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images)
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While ticket sales, viewership and media rights deals are the metrics most often cited in the debate over the value of women’s basketball as an enterprise, players like Reese point the way toward an alternative growth trajectory, one driven by viral content and audience engagement.
Three-time WNBA champion Breanna Stewart and fellow Olympian, Napheesa Collier, gave the world a glimpse into what could be the future of women’s basketball through the launch of Unrivaled, a professional league that the co-founders launched in January.
While some of the WNBA’s biggest stars, including Clark and Wilson, were notably absent, Unrivaled amplified players who have yet to appear in the CarMax and State Farm commercials that punctuate televised women’s games each summer.
For example, Aaliyah Edwards, who will start her sophomore year with the Washington Mystics in 2025, began trending during Unrivaled’s 1-on-1 tournament. Defeating fan favorites such as Stewart and Arike Ogunbowale, Edwards ended the tournament as runner-up, losing to Collier in the final round.
Unrivaled did not calculate the success of its inaugural season solely through viewership and sold-out games. The league also saw explosive growth in players’ own brands through social media engagement. With 589.1 million total social media impressions across platforms, Unrivaled reported that, in aggregate, players gained 947,000 followers for their personal accounts.
Black women emerged as some of the most popular figures within the Unrivaled content universe. Through home-away-from-home tours sponsored by Wayfair, viral post-game celebration video shorts, and Angel Reese and Dijonai Carrington’s pregame makeup tutorial sponsored by Sephora, Black women ballers bridged on-court excitement with off-court charisma, proving that Black girl magic is still good for business.