Women's Health August 7, 2026 0 Comments

How the WNBA’s Explosive Rise Is Shattering Records and Changing the Game Forever

Picture this: you’re swept up in a sea of waving jerseys and buzzing excitement outside WNBA Live, long before you even slap on your media badge. Kids balanced on shoulders, chants building like a rolling thunderstorm… and there I was, soaking it all in on Day One of the All-Star weekend. Two days later, standing smack dab on the court, Los Angeles Sparks’ Nneka Ogwumike shares a revelation with me—that those seemingly tiny moments are the heartbeat of it all. But honestly? At that very moment, I wasn’t quite tuned in yet. All I knew was the WNBA I’d known before just didn’t look like this anymore.

So, how did a league once known for grueling travel and sky-high obstacles morph into a powerhouse where players can actually catch some Z’s in their own beds between games? And why is a Delta charter program doing more than just moving the team around—it’s shifting the entire culture of the W? Join me on this behind-the-scenes journey through history, hustle, and a whole lotta hustle-busting breakthroughs. Ready to see what’s really fueling the WNBA’s glow-up? Let’s jump in. LEARN MORE

7 min read

I was swept into the crowd outside WNBA Live before I’d even put on my media credentials. Fans lined the convention center hallway in custom jerseys, kids perched on their parents’ shoulders, excitement building as they waited to be let inside for the first day of All-Star weekend. Two days later, standing on a basketball court inside that same space, Los Angeles Sparks forward Nneka Ogwumike would tell me those small moments are the whole point. But on my first day in Chicago, I didn’t realize that yet. I only knew the WNBA hadn’t looked quite like this before.

For most of the WNBA’s 30-year history, just getting to the games in the first place was an ordeal for the elite athletes playing at the highest level of basketball. Ogwumike, now in her fourth term as president of the Women’s National Basketball Players Association, remembers it clearly.

“There have been times when players in the past had commercial flights delayed or canceled and were still made to play after landing maybe two or three hours before the game,” she tells me. “We’ve come a very long way.”

The league’s earliest stars remember it as just the cost of doing business. Teresa Weatherspoon—five-time All-Star, Naismith Hall of Famer, and one of two retired legends who served as All-Star “general managers” as part of the league’s 30th-anniversary celebration—told me on the Orange Carpet that the original players of the league didn’t come in looking for the W to prove itself to them. When the WNBA began play in 1997, many of the players of Weatherspoon’s generation had been playing professionally overseas for years and just wanted a chance to play in the States.

“All we wanted to do is to really compete at a very high level to show that we belong in America,” she says. “Nothing that we stepped in between the four lines was a surprise to us. It wasn’t. It was more of, now let’s perform. Let’s perform in the face of the world, so now our younger ones can live the dream as well.”

Despite low salaries, less-than-exceptional facilities, and unpredictable travel, the players of the W consistently performed at high levels while working behind the scenes to leverage more benefits for future generations. Ogwumike says she first felt a shift a few years ago when the league received “this surge of fandom” from exciting new rookies entering the WNBA that never let up. In between renegotiating collective bargaining agreements, smaller wins, like the WNBA’s league-wide charter flight program with Delta Air Lines that launched before the 2024 season, served as a catalyst for bigger changes.

“I never thought that I would be in the league when this happened,” she says of the charter program. “That was a really big moment for me, and I’m sure for many other players, because it was an indication that we were growing to be a league that’s high in the professional ranks.”

The difference, she says, shows up in the way players feel and perform on the court. “Ever since we’ve had the Delta charter program, we notice how we’re able to sleep in our own beds more often,” she says. “After games, you can fly out immediately and jumpstart the recovery process. So having that is a very big difference when it comes to high-level performance.” The planes are comfortable enough to sleep on, she adds, with sections for players, coaches, and staff. ”At this point now, it feels like home, for sure.”

But charter flights were never the finish line; they were leverage. Ogwumike says the players went into the most recent CBA negotiations intending to codify the charter flights—and then some. “This is something that, moving forward, no other teams or players should have to deal with. And that’s a really big signal for growth,” she says. “I’m excited that we were able to use the energy from those types of resources being added to our experience and player health and safety to leverage what more we needed in this last agreement.”

The result, ratified in 2026, was a new CBA built around a revenue-sharing model tied to league growth and a salary cap that jumped from roughly $1.5 million to $7 million, alongside transformational benefits for current and retired players.

No Miles Required

For WNBA fans Becky Lane and Shura Gat, traveling to games from their home base in Ithaca, NY, is a new tradition. Lane is a longtime fan who had drifted from the league before Caitlin Clark’s arrival and the Unrivaled 3-on-3 league pulled her back in; Gat is a newer fan along for the ride.

But travel logistics got in the way when they weighed their options for All-Star in Chicago. “We had already decided, ‘I guess we’re not going to make it this year,’ and we had come to terms with it,” Lane says. “I was like, ‘That’s all right. We don’t have to go every year.’”

The two were sitting on the couch when they came across Delta’s All-Star weekend giveaway—a Group Drop that sent fans to Chicago with courtside seats, pregame hospitality, a private shootaround with Ogwumike and retired legend Lauren Jackson, and Orange Carpet access. Delta’s SkyMiles Experiences program runs Group Drops as recurring sweepstakes that SkyMiles members can enter for free, no miles required (as opposed to Delta’s regular miles-for-perks marketplace that lets you bid on things like dinner at the Bachelor mansion or golfing with Tom Brady).

When Lane was notified that she’d won, “I thought it was a scam,” she says, laughing.

“Each aspect of this is such an incredible gift,” Gat says. I spoke to them on the court right after the shootaround at WNBA Live, where Ogwumike and Jackson showed them what a workout and drills look like for the pros. “The whole access is just unbelievable. And I think that’s part of what makes the W special, is that the players are very much connected with the fans.”

Lane and Gat, who both have graduate degrees in sociology of sport from Clark’s alma mater, the University of Iowa, say the longstanding community of the WNBA is what keeps them coming back for more. “To see that legacy, the 30 years that they talk about—just watching the players have the respect for the people who built this for them, I think is really cool,” Lane says. “It feels more like a family.”

Sage Zipeto//Getty Images

Good Business

Emmakate Young, managing director of brand marketing and global sponsorships for Delta, saw the excitement around All-Star firsthand on her own flight into Chicago from Atlanta. “There’s a buzz that happens when you’re on a plane going somewhere where you’re going to experience a shared event with other people,” she says. “Everyone is so excited about this thing that you’re going to go experience together and these core memories that you’re going to make.”

Delta became the WNBA’s official airline and charter provider in 2024 and just renewed the partnership for three more years. Delta and the league put roughly $50 million behind the original two-year charter program. Young says it was a no-brainer for the airline to step in and contribute to such an essential upgrade for the players, as well as help create epic moments for the fans.

She’s also not shy about the fact that this is good business. “We research it to make sure that it’s good business,” she says. “Since the inception of the partnership, we’ve seen our brand preference and our brand love have double-digit growth amongst WNBA fans.” Entrants for Delta’s All-Star weekend giveaway skewed 85 percent Gen Z and 75 percent women, key demographics that Delta is trying to reach right now.

Ogwumike, a Delta partner and 11-time All-Star, believes the fans deserve access to these major sports moments as much as the players do. The 2026 WNBA season is on pace to be the most-viewed in history, and it’s only just past the halfway mark. “I think it’s an indication of the investment in women’s sports, but then also the people that are the stronghold that make women’s sports what it is. Our fans give us that leverage,” she says. “So being able to come here every year, seeing W Live growing and growing, and being able to activate with amazing partners like Delta, I’m hoping that not only the players feel it, but also the fans feel it, too.”

Sage Zipeto//Getty Images

That leverage showed up on the court, too. Team Spoon’s 129–122 win over Team Coop played out in front of a sold-out United Center, with a higher attendance than the NBA All-Star Game earlier this year. The Indiana Fever’s Clark drew some of the loudest ovations of the night; Jonquel Jones of the New York Liberty took home MVP and became the first-ever player to collect the Infinity Stones that are the league MVP, Finals MVP, Commissioner’s Cup MVP, and All-Star MVP. On a weekend built around the league’s 30th anniversary, it felt less rooted in nostalgia and more like proof of how much things have actually grown. (“The level of play is just incredible” in 2026, says Lane, who also was a fan of the league in its infancy. “The things they do, the knowledge of the game, the intricacies of the plays, the way they talk to each other—it’s professional.”)

While much has changed for the WNBA even in the last two years, the “small moments” with fans are an important constant for Ogwumike—from hallway hellos to hooping at that day’s clinic. “I want [the fans] to know that those moments are as important to us as they are for them,” she says. ”I’m very grateful to be here as an 11-time All-Star, and still feel like it’s my first time.”

Weatherspoon’s generation walked so that players like Ogwumike could run through the halls of the Chicago convention center lined with joyous fans. Whether they succeeded in their mission isn’t really a debate anymore. “We still have a long way to go,” Weatherspoon says, “but boy, are they doing it well.”

Amanda Lucci is the director of special projects at Women’s Health, where she works on multi-platform brand initiatives and social media strategy. She also leads the sports and athletes vertical, traveling to cover the Paris Olympics, Women’s World Cup, WNBA Finals, and NCAA Final Four for WH. She has nearly 15 years of experience writing, editing, and managing social media for national and international publications and is also a NASM-certified personal trainer. A proud native of Pittsburgh, PA, she is a graduate of Ohio University’s E.W. Scripps School of Journalism. Follow her on Instagram @alucci.