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WNBA set to open highly anticipated 2025 season after record-setting 2024

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On the heels of the most celebrated WNBA season since the league's inception, year No. 29 of women's professional basketball in the United States in 2025 promises to be even bigger.

With an expanded schedule and a new team in the fold, the records set for attendance, viewership and merchandise sales set just one year ago are all ripe to be broken over the next several months.

The WNBA enjoyed a 170 per cent increase in viewership from 2023 to 2024, and the league barrels into 2025 having already widened its footprint, welcoming an expansion team for the first time in 17 years.

The Golden State Valkyries are the newest team, but they'll only hold that distinction for one year with the WNBA adding franchises in Toronto and Portland in 2026.

Before looking ahead to next year, the 2025 season tips off Friday, and for the first time, all teams will play 44 games – four more than the last two seasons.

 

It’s full steam ahead for the WNBA, and much of the accelerated attention from last year can be traced to Caitlin Clark.

Although Clark may be the one most responsible for the WNBA's explosion in popularity and is the league’s most recognisable player, she wasn't the one holding the championship trophy at season's end. Or the one voted as the league's top player for that matter.

The New York Liberty are the reigning champs and the Las Vegas Aces' A'ja Wilson was unanimously selected as the 2024 league MVP – her third time bringing home that award in the last five years.

Clark was a near-unanimous selection as last season's Rookie of the Year, but her Indiana Fever were swept out of the first-round of the play-offs.

There's plenty of motivation for Clark entering her second pro season, but she's hardly alone among superstars looking to vanquish bitter finishes to the 2024 season with unfinished business in 2025.

MVP runner-up Napheesa Collier and Minnesota seek to finish the job after the Lynx fell just shy of capturing a fifth championship with an overtime loss in the winner-take-all Game 5 of last year's Finals.

Wilson, meanwhile, is coming off her best statistical season, but it ended with her Aces coming up short in their bid for a three-peat as they were eliminated by the Liberty in the semi-finals.

New York then went on to capture the franchise's first title following an epic Finals matchup that featured a pair of overtime games.

Repeating won't be easy, as the 2022 and '23 Aces are the only team in the last two decades to have claimed consecutive titles, but the Liberty might just have what it takes to add to their trophy case.

 

 

Can the Liberty run it back?

With a 32-8 record a year ago, New York compiled the best record in the WNBA during the 2024 regular season before taking out the Atlanta Dream, Las Vegas and Minnesota en route to winning the title.

The target is on their back, but they seemingly have the firepower to return to the top.

The core is back, and they arguably have the best core of any team in the league.

A trio of perennial All-Stars in Breanna Stewart, Sabrina Ionescu and Jonquel Jones spearhead the Liberty and Sandy Brondello's team has added another one of the league's premier players to the mix.

Natasha Cloud, a three-time All-Defensive team selection and the 2022 assists leader, now takes over in the backcourt for the departed Courtney Vandersloot.

Led by the sharpshooter Ionescu, no team made more 3-pointers in 2024 than the Liberty's 405 and only Las Vegas had a higher scoring average than New York's mark of 85.6 per game.

The Liberty are poised for another deep run, but Minnesota and Las Vegas are once again standing in their way.

The Lynx were mere moments away from hoisting last year's championship trophy, only to cough up a lead in the final seconds of the final game and were unable to recover in overtime as they watched the Liberty celebrate.

The stinging loss should fuel Collier and company.

Like the Liberty, the Lynx also bring back the nucleus of their lineup from a year ago.

Back are Minnesota's top five scorers from 2024 in Collier, four-time All-Star Kayla McBride, Courtney Williams, Alanna Smith and Bridget Carleton.

One of the league's most balanced teams, Collier is coming off a season in which she was named the WNBA Defensive Player of the Year, while McBride and Carleton make up one of the league's top 3-point shooting duos.

 

Neither the Liberty nor the Lynx can stake the claim to employing the league's most dominant player, however.

That would be the Aces, who have the luxury of inserting Wilson as the centrepiece of their lineup.

Wilson became just the fourth player in WNBA history to win a third league MVP after receiving all 67 first-place votes in 2024 to join Cynthia Cooper in the league's inaugural 1997 season to win the award unanimously.

With 1,021 points in the 2024 regular season, Wilson established the WNBA single-season scoring record and also posted a league-high 98 blocks, for averages of 26.9 points, 11.8 rebounds and 2.6 blocks.

This season, the Aces have added another scoring threat to their roster to give them another offensive weapon.

Jewell Loyd will team with Wilson after being acquired from the Seattle Storm in a multi-team trade that saw Kelsey Plum join the Los Angeles Sparks.

A six-time All-Star, Loyd was the 2023 scoring champion and finished sixth in the WNBA in scoring last season with a 19.7 average.

She makes an Aces team that averaged a league-best 86.4 points in 2024 even more explosive.

 

What will Caitlin Clark do for an encore in Year 2?

To say Clark had a significant impact on the WNBA in her first year in the league in 2024 would be an understatement.

The WNBA saw a 48 per cent increase in average attendance from 2023, with the Fever setting a single-season home attendance record of 340,715 fans – obliterating the previous mark of 250,565 set by New York in 2001.

Clark put on a show for the fans, managing to live up to the expectations for the most highly touted rookie in WNBA history.

She broke the league's single-season assist mark with 337 - including a WNBA-record 19 in one game - and averaged 8.4 per contest to become the first rookie to lead the league in that stat.

Her 122 3-pointers also led all players and she scored the most points ever by a rookie with an average of 19.2 per game to rank seventh in the WNBA.

As expected, she won the Rookie of the Year Award, receiving 66 of 67 total votes, with the other vote going to the Chicago Sky's Angel Reese – the 2024 rebounding leader.

 

Clark's season concluded in disappointing fashion, however, with the Fever losing their two play-off games by a combined 30 points.

To avoid a similar fate this year, the Fever upgraded their roster in the off-season, adding a pair of veterans with championship pedigrees.

DeWanna Bonner – a six-time All-Star and two-time WNBA champion – and Natasha Howard – a two-time All-Star, a three-time title winner and the 2019 Defensive Player of the Year – join an Indiana team that also includes a pair of 2024 All-Stars in Kelsey Mitchell and Aliyah Boston, who is two years removed from winning the Rookie of the Year Award.

The Fever also have a new voice at the top with Stephanie White taking over as coach – one of eight teams with a new coach in 2025.

Indiana's success this season, though, ultimately comes down to Clark and if she can build on a sensational rookie season and take another step forward in Year 2.

 

Will No. 1 pick Paige Bueckers live up to expectations?

A year after Clark took the WNBA by storm, it's now Paige Bueckers' turn to make her mark on the league.

Selected by the Dallas Wings with the first overall pick of April’s draft, Bueckers is the most coveted rookie since, well, Clark a year before.

Clark set the bar extremely high with her exceptional play last year, so now the pressure will be on Bueckers.

 

She joins a Wings team that lost 31 of its 40 games last season, but boasted one of the league's top offences, ranking fourth in scoring at 84.2 points per game and first in total pace, averaging 81.71 possessions per 40 minutes.

Playing alongside fellow guard Arike Ogunbowale – a four-time All-Star and the 2020 scoring champ – Bueckers has the opportunity to make an already prolific offence even more electric.

Dallas' defence – which permitted a league-worst 92.1 points per game in 2024 – should also improve in 2025 after the off-season hiring of defensive strategist Chris Koclanes to be the team's head coach.

Koclanes and Bueckers will make their WNBA debuts Friday with a tough matchup against Collier and the Lynx.

The Valkyries will play their first game later in the evening when they host the Sparks, while the Liberty will begin their title defence on Saturday with a championship banner-raising ceremony prior to a play-off rematch against the Aces.