The WNBA is riding a wave of momentum former All-Star Adrienne Goodson believes the league hasn’t seen since its early days.

WNBA viewership during the 2021 regular season was up 49 percent year over year. The playoffs were the most-watched since 2014. The champion Chicago Sky sold out both of their home games during the Finals and ticket prices soared. Players also signed a record number of endorsement deals. That included Seattle Storm forward Breanna Stewart, who will be the first WNBA player to have her own signature shoe in a decade after inking a long-term partnership with Puma.

Goodson, who played for four WNBA teams during a 14-year professional career that started overseas and in the American Basketball League (ABL), sees those signs of progress as a call to action. Here, in her own words for Just Women’s Sports, Goodson reflects on her experience with growth in women’s basketball and shares her thoughts on how the WNBA can capitalize on the success of 2021.

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The league can never be the same, with the increased viewership and the ticket prices rising for the playoffs this season. I mean, a ticket in Chi Town versus the Mercury sold for as much as $1,500. With that and the four Finals games on ESPN averaging 548,000 viewers compared to 440,000 in 2020 and 381,000 in 2019, that’s a huge jump for them. They’re coming along.

And even when I look back in the day, we had massive crowds. Washington had crazy crowds, New York had crazy crowds, Houston had crazy crowds. Utah was off the chain — we went from, like, 3,000 fans all the way up to a playoff game that I think touched 15,000. And we’re talking way back in the day. Then in 2003, the Detroit Shock versus the L.A. Sparks had 1.2 million viewers.

So there is a lot of potential for this league, and I just think that they can do a better job with television. That starts with not following the NBA as much because we have our own market. We’re the sister league and the NBA already had a model in place, so it was like, OK, we’ll just use that model because it’s proven. But we have totally different markets, so I think that the model has to change in the ways that the league is marketed.

And I’ll keep saying it: We need WNBA TV and we need affiliates out there that will also boost the games. So if you’re going to model it after something, model it after NBA TV because it’s television, it’s in-house and it pays the bills. That way, we can get sponsors on TV spots and things like that, and now we can speak to our own market. As much as they’re promoting the league, how we walk and how we talk and our fashion, my God, just imagine all the sponsors that can be unleashed if something like that were to happen.

It’s not a criticism because I love the WNBA app. However, I pay for it because I want to give back to the league. I want to make sure that whatever it is that they put out there, I support it in some kind of way. But trying to view the games on there is not always cool. I think I watched one game this season; all the rest of them were blacked out. So we have to have more options than that or Twitter or some of the channels that we are on like ESPN, where we sometimes get bumped around. We shouldn’t be bumped around.

And what about jerseys? I think it’s time that everybody’s jersey is available across the board, from current players to throwbacks. This is what people are requesting, so you’ve got to give the people what they want. They’re aware of it now.

It’s just time to really take a serious look at the league as a whole, starting all the way back in 1997 to the 25th anniversary. The 2002 collective bargaining agreement — that was fire. That was the beginning of a lot of action. We were fighting for maternity leave because, at that time, players were only getting 50 percent of their salary if they got pregnant. That was obviously not enough, to not work, get 50 percent and be expecting a child. And then we fought to raise the veterans’ minimum salary from something like $30,000 to $60,000, which we felt was really successful. But at that time, it kind of clashed with the league’s budget. We started to see veterans fade out because teams were choosing to pay two rookies versus one vet.

I think there’s a lot of change that’s in the air and in the background with things that come across my email. So I think this is a great time for us. You don’t want to praise the pandemic, but the pandemic was what catapulted us into the limelight because people were at home and they had to watch the league. We were confined to the house and, all of a sudden, people started to pay a little more attention to it. We had the social justice movements going on and the girls took that on, which is something that we’ve always done. We’ve always been a part of those types of movements.

I think it just needs to be a conversation where you get the people in the room who could make it happen. If you have a whole bunch of people sitting around, just hoping for the best, then nothing is going to get done. If you have only one or two people addressing it, that’s still not power. I think there are enough resources out there that will allow that to happen. If we just market the league the way that we need, and not just treat the product as a thing that stays afloat, it can actually make money. There’s potential now, so we can never be the same. And then that takes care of your pension problem and all of the issues that you’re dealing with under the table.

Our market is different and it needs to be tailored in a different way. You can go far, but you always have to tap into your ancestry, understand why you do things the way that you do. It’s not even just about basketball — it’s about elevating women’s sports. We’re all in this together because we all have to deal with that same glass ceiling.

Adrienne Goodson (“Goody”) is a contributing writer at Just Women’s Sports. She played 14 years of professional basketball, including seven in the WNBA. A three-time All-Star in the pros and an NCAA champion, she was inducted into the Old Dominion Hall of Fame in 1999. She is the host of the podcast “A WNBA State of Mind with Adrienne Goodson.” Follow her on Twitter @agoody15_wnba.

U.S. Soccer announced Tuesday that the USWNT will play their last home game on July 16th in the lead-up to the 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris.

The 2024 Send-Off Match against Costa Rica will take place at Washington, DC’s Audi Field — home to both the Washington Spirit and DC United — at 7:30 p.m. ET on Tuesday, July 16th. The friendly rounds out a four-game Olympic run-up campaign under incoming head coach Emma Hayes’ side, with the last two set to feature the finalized 2024 U.S. Olympic Women’s Soccer Team roster.

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Hayes will appear on the USWNT sideline for the first time this June, helming the team as they embark on a two-game series against Korea Republic hosted by Dick’s Sporting Goods Park in Commerce City, Colorado on June 1st followed by Allianz Stadium in St. Paul, Minnesota on June 4th. 

The team is then scheduled to meet a talented Mexico squad on July 13th at Gotham FC’s Red Bull Arena in Harrison, New Jersey, where the Olympic-bound lineup will attempt to rewrite February’s shocking 2-0 loss to El Tri Femenil in the group stages of this year’s Concacaf W Gold Cup. And while clear roster favorites have emerged from both of this year’s Gold Cup and SheBelives Cup rosters, a spate of recent and recurring injuries means making it to the Olympics is still largely anyone’s game.

Broadcast and streaming channels for the USWNT's final July 16th friendly at Audi Field include TNT, truTV, Universo, Max, and Peacock.

The USA Basketball Women's National Team is still considering Caitlin Clark for a spot on the Paris Olympics squad, says selection committee chair Jennifer Rizzotti. 

On Monday, Rizzotti told the AP that the committee will be evaluating the college phenom’s Olympic prospects by keeping a close eye on her first few weeks of WNBA play with Indiana.

The move is somewhat unconventional. While Clark was invited to participate in the 14-player national team training camp held earlier this month — the last camp before Team USA’s roster drops — she was unable to attend due to it coinciding with Iowa’s trip to the NCAA Women’s Final Four.

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Judging by the immense talent spread throughout the league in what might be their most hyped season to date, competition for a piece of the Olympic pie could be fiercer than ever before.

"You always want to introduce new players into the pool whether it's for now or the future," said Rizzotti. "We stick to our principles of talent, obviously, positional fit, loyalty and experience. It's got to be a combination of an entire body of work. It's still not going to be fair to some people."

Of course, Clark isn’t the first rookie the committee has made exceptions for. Coming off an exceptional college season that saw her averaging 19.4 points, 8.7 rebounds, and 4 assists per game for UConn, Breanna Stewart was tapped to represent the U.S. at the 2016 Olympics in Brazil less than two weeks after being drafted No. 1 overall by the Seattle Storm. Eight years prior, fellow No. 1 pick Candace Parker punched her ticket to the 2008 Games in Beijing just two weeks after making her first appearance for the L.A. Sparks.

In the lead-up to Paris’ Opening Ceremony on July 26th, USA Basketball Women’s National Team is scheduled to play a pair of exhibition games. They'll first go up against the WNBA's finest at the July 20th WNBA All-Star Game in Phoenix before facing Germany in London on July 23rd.

While an official roster announcement date hasn’t yet been issued, players won’t find out if they’ve made this year’s Olympic cut until at least June 1st.

For the first time in history, three different WNBA teams have completely sold out of season ticket plans well before the league's May 14th kick-off.

Call it the Caitlin Clark effect, attribute it to this year’s tenacious rookie class, or look to the skyrocketing visibility of veteran players across the board. But no matter the cause, facts are facts: Tickets to the 2024 WNBA season are selling like never before. 

On Monday, the Dallas Wings became the third team to sell out of season ticket memberships in the league’s 27-year history. The announcement from Arlington came shortly after the Atlanta Dream issued their own season ticket sell-out statement, also on Monday, and almost seven weeks after the back-to-back WNBA Champion Las Vegas Aces made headlines by becoming the first-ever WNBA team to sell out their season ticket allotment.   

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According to the Wings, season ticket memberships will fill nearly 40% of the 6,251 seats inside their home arena, College Park Center. The club also said that their overall ticket revenue has ballooned to the tune of 220% this year, spanning not just season tickets but also a 1,200% increase in single ticket sales. There’s currently a waitlist to become a Dallas season ticket holder, a status that comes with extra incentives like playoff presale access and discounts on additional single-game tickets. 

In Atlanta, season tickets aren't the only thing flying off the shelves. The Dream also announced that they broke their own record for single-game ticket sales during a recent limited presale campaign. Sunday was reportedly their most lucrative day, with five different games totally selling out Gateway Center Arena. Individual tickets for all upcoming matchups will hit the market this Thursday at 8 a.m., while a waitlist for season ticket memberships will open up next Tuesday at 10 a.m.

"Excitement around women's sports, particularly basketball, is at an all-time high and nowhere is that felt more than here in Atlanta," Dream president and COO Morgan Shaw Parker said in the team’s statement. "We’ve continued a record-setting growth trajectory over the past three years under new ownership — both on and off the court — and 2024 is shaping up to be our best season yet."

As of Tuesday, season ticket sales revenue for Caitlin Clark’s hotly anticipated Indiana Fever debut haven’t yet been announced by the club. But if these numbers are any indication — not to mention the explosive demand for Fever away games felt by teams around the country — it won’t be long before we see some scale-tipping figures coming out of Indianapolis.

25-year-old American pro golfer Nelly Korda secured her spot in LPGA history on Sunday, notching her fifth-straight title at this weekend's Chevron Championship in The Woodlands, Texas.

Ranked No. 1 in the world by Rolex Women’s World Golf Rankings, Korda joins Nancy Lopez (1978) and Annika Sörenstam (2005) as just the third LPGA player to rack up five consecutive tour wins. She is also the third No. 1-ranked player to capture The Chevron Championship victory since the rankings debuted in 2006, accompanied by Lorena Ochoa and Lydia Ko.

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The Florida native shot three-under 69 in Sunday's final, besting Sweden's Maja Stark despite Stark's valiant come-from-behind attempt in the 18th. Korda finished with a four-day total of 13-under 275, celebrating her two-stroke win by cannonballing into Poppie's Pond, much to the crowd's delight. She left The Club at Carlton Woods with $1.2 million from an overall purse of $7.9 million.

It wasn't long ago that the two-time major champion's current winning streak seemed unimaginable. After maintaining her No. 1 position for 29 weeks, Korda underwent surgery to remove a blood clot from her left arm in 2022. She returned to the course not long after, but failed to win a single tournament in 2023 before seeing a surge in form during the first four months of 2024. As of today, she hasn't lost a tournament since January.

Korda will attempt a record sixth-straight win at next week's JM Eagle LA Championship at Wilshire Country Club in Los Angeles, where she'll vie for a cut of the $3.75 million purse.