On today's Locked On Women's Basketball Podcast, Howard Megdal is joined by Jackie Powell (she/her) live from the #WNBADraft in New York. They discuss bringing fans back to the draft and the best (and most interesting) picks of the night.

thenexthoops.com/podcast/locked…

Cameron Brink on watching the growth of the WNBA:

'Growing up I was first introduced to the league because my mom was a product line manager at Nike... I grew up having so much admiration for these women and it was just really upsetting to not see that reciprocated by the…

The WNBA Golden State team announced that it has eclipsed 6,000 season ticket deposits since the franchise was announced in Oct. 2023.

It will begin play in the 2025 WNBA season.

WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said Monday the W will likely hold its expansion draft in Dec.

This really does hold up nicely.

Hire journalists to cover the WNBA please. Invest now in on-the-ground coverage of the day in, day out beats of the league. Beat reporters, if you will. Your publication will be better for it.

People are saying Caitlin Clark will take a pay cut to come to the #WNBA . Don't you believe it. The numbers as they actually are, my latest Forbes SportsMoney forbes.com/sites/howardme…

Back at it after a long, fun day helping with @suntimes Sky draft coverage.

The fan base is there, and it's growing —

• Yesterday was the best day for Sky traffic to suntimes.com in the history of the website, including the 2021 Finals and championship parade

Kaitlyn Davis, CC'23, was also selected in this year's WNBA draft by New York Liberty at pick No. 35. The former Columbia Women's Basketball forward will now join Hsu, making her the second Lion to be apart of the 2024 draft class.

I call it the Lindsay Gottlieb effect!

Good time for me to suggest that Fox Sports and other entities with a financial stake in women's basketball, college or otherwise, to hire fulltime women's basketball writers.

“I definitely know there’s eyeballs on me.” VF’s Tom Kludt goes behind the scenes with Caitlin Clark as she prepares for the WBNA draft and reflects on the end of her brilliant collegiate career. vntyfr.com/Q4AFOCu

The 2.4 million people who watched last night's WNBA draft on ESPN is the largest WNBA audience for ANYTHING since 2000 (A Liberty/Comets game that averaged 2.74 million). The previous record for the draft was 601,000 in 2004. Absolutely incredible.

WNBA search traffic so far this week is 12x higher than it's ever been in the past five years. It also passed Google interest in the NBA on Monday, possibly for the first time ever?

Just a bit of clarification from last night, sounds like Mike Thibault may have gotten a lil ahead of himself in terms of Tianna Hawkins. She has not yet retired.

The WNBA Draft averaged 2.45 million viewers Monday. Another wow for women's basketball. This is like double my expectation.

Not far from the 2.83 million that watched LeBron James' draft in 2003.

I cannot wrap my head around these numbers any longer.

2.4 million viewers for the WNBA Draft on Monday on ESPN (first time over 1 million)

NBA Draft did 3.7 million in 2023 on ABC/ESPN

MLB Draft was 744,000 on ESPN/MLB Net in 2023

NHL Draft was 681,000 on ESPN last year

Holy shiiiiiiiiiiiit.

The previous viewership record for the WNBA Draft came in 2004 for Diana Taurasi’s draft year. That Draft drew 601,000 viewers.

This is up 300 percent in viewership from last year.
Head-spinning stuff for sports TV viewership.

NY Liberty beat reporter Jackie Powell (she/her) and Editor of The Next: A women's basketball newsroom at The IX Howard Megdal stayed up late to analyze the #WNBADraft last night and break a little news in the process.

Hear about the Liberty signing Colorado’s Jaylyn Sherrod and much more below:

youtube.com/live/X46xWoT8K…

🔊 NEWSLINE: Caitlin Clark is #1 in WNBA draft 🏀 🏀 Jackie Powell [Jackie Powell (she/her)], a women's basketball reporter and New York Liberty beat writer at The Next: A women's basketball newsroom at The IX, joined Newsline w/ Brigitte Quinn to break down why Caitlin is numero uno! bit.ly/3vSKhfe

Amazing how many men become experts on the economy and accounting the second WNBA salaries are mentioned.