Your Creator Marketing Guide to the WNBA Playoffs (HBBIP #101)

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As the hype for last week’s 100th issue gradually dissipates—if it’s even possible for hype surrounding such a momentous event to dissipate—hype for another equally momentous event is beginning to rise. 

That’s right: as sports fans everywhere already know, yesterday marked the beginning of the WNBA playoffs! And as HBBIP fans everywhere already know, we love talking about sports in this newsletter. All manners of sports—we don’t discriminate: football, basketball, other football (for our European friends), motorsports, sports gambling, hockey, baseball. 

At the risk of sounding like Bubba from Forrest Gump, we’ve also touched on women’s sports before, so no, a WNBA newsletter isn’t anything new for us. Still, given that it’s the high season for the WNBA, and given the league’s emergence as an absolute phenomenon both on social media and in society at large, I figured it’s time for us to check out yet another sport. 

So put on some facepaint, grab a giant foam finger, and sit down in front of your favorite device to read this newsletter, presumably as you scroll with your non-foam fingered hand. And then head on down to your local WNBA arena and catch a playoff game, since you might as well put that outfit to good use.

The Greatest Brand of All Time (of the Week): the WNBA

Given the nature of linear time, at the moment I’m writing these words, the WNBA playoffs have not yet begun. So I won’t try to pretend that I know all the crazy action from last night, but I do know a few things from my vantage point over here in the past:

• Caitlin Clark is out for the rest of the season, but her Indiana Fever have clinched both the playoffs and the Commissioner’s Cup. How far can they go without their star?
• The Minnesota Lynx are well out in front of the pack. Can last year’s runners-up finish the job in 2025?
• The Las Vegas Aces are on a crazy hot streak, having won (at press time) 13 in a row. Are they the team to beat?

With exciting players and dramatic storylines, there are so many reasons to tune into the WNBA playoffs this year—so, you know, you should do that. Especially because this newsletter isn’t really about those storylines! Again, what with that whole “linear nature of time” thing, I can report on numbers and data from events that have already taken place, such as the steady rise of the WNBA over the last few years, but we’ll have to wait a little while for playoffs data to become available.

What we have right now are details on the WNBA’s rise to prominence from 2022 onward, so let’s zoom in on that:

Diving into the data, I saw a pretty clear growth story. No need to do a lot of digging for this one. Here’s why:

WNBA Impressions (US): 2022 - 2024

I’m gonna tell you now that pretty much every graph looks like this: decent growth between 2022 and 2023, followed by a huge surge in 2024. 

Hmmm…what happened in WNBA circles in 2024?

Caitlin Clark joining the WNBA

Yeah, you don’t need to be a WNBA superfan to have heard a little something about that. We’ll get into exactly how big Clark’s impact has been for the League at large, but first, let’s further quantify that 2024 surge. Because it’s not just impressions that are rising dramatically for the WNBA—it’s everything:

WBNA Engagements (US): 2022 - 2024

More engagements!

WNBA Creator Count (US): 2022 - 2024

More creators! (Note that the WNBA’s creator count actually dropped between 2022 and 2023, indicating that what happened in 2024 did go some way toward reversing a trend.)

WNBA Post Count (US): 2022 - 2024

More—over 3x more—the posts!

Was it all Caitlin Clark? Not exactly.

Here’s a closer look at the Clark Effect: in 2024, mentions of ‘Caitlin Clark’ powered $90.2M EMV, more than entire teams like the Seattle Seahawks, the Miami Heat, and the Philadelphia Phillies. And again, these are only posts that mention both Caitlin Clark and the WNBA—her overall digital profile is even larger once you factor in posts that don’t specifically mention the WNBA.

Another thing that’s even larger? The WNBA. Nope, it’s not just a one-player boost: it’s the strength of the league as a whole. See for yourself:

Breakdown of Content 

One obvious takeaway here is that discourse about the WNBA extends well beyond any individual star, even if that star has played a key role in expanding the league’s profile. But another has to do with the numbers at play: the WNBA pulled in $688.9M EMV in 2024, more than every sports league and team we track save for the NBA and NFL. You can quibble with revenue and viewership numbers, but we’ve got numbers too, and they say that social media loves women’s basketball.

Preeminent news outlets like the New York Times and How to Build Brands and Influence People are reporting on the unique clout that female athletes, particularly collegiate and professional basketball players, bring to the table. With March Madness commercials and social feeds dominated by female stars, and WNBA figures like Sophie Cunningham leveraging their on-court heroics into podcasts and endorsement deals, we’re not just on the cusp of the WNBA emerging as a full-fledged social sensation—we’re already there.

Another thing working in the WNBA’s favor? A rising tide for sports at large. If all of those sports links from earlier weren’t a clear enough indication, athletes are becoming creators at a rapid rate. The worlds of streaming, gaming, sports, and influencing boast a healthy intersection, and every major sports league both in the U.S. and around the world is coming to recognize the value creators can drive when it comes to reaching new audiences.

We might be a ways off from the WNBA running livestreams of games with popular YouTubers, as the NFL did during its season-opening week…

Livestreams of Games During NFL Opening Week 

But in the world of creator marketing, ‘a ways off’ might only mean a few months. For now, buckle up for what’s sure to be an awesome WNBA playoffs—and know that all of social media will be watching alongside you.

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