WNBA finally launching $25 million charter-flight program for teams after years of angst

The WNBA is on the cusp of upgrading its travel.

The league is planning to launch a program for all 12 teams to fly by charter for the 2024 season, which begins May 14.

“We intend to fund a full-time charter for this season,” WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said Tuesday during a meeting with sports editors, according to the Associated Press, adding that the chartered flights will begin “as soon as we can get planes in place.”

The program will cost the WNBA $25 million a year for this and next season, Engelbert said.

The WNBA already had announced at its draft last month plans to once again pay for charter flights for the entire playoffs as well as for back-to-back games during the upcoming season that require air travel.

The league’s schedule features more back-to-back sets this season with the WNBA taking a long break for the Olympics in late July and early August. The league spent $4 million on charters in 2023.

The WNBA has been in a pickle for several years about teams flying commercial.

Two years ago, the league fined the Liberty $500,000 for breaking the rules and flying private, as players crowed on social media about getting treated well by team ownership.

Just last Thursday, Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever were hounded by press upon their commercial flight landing in Dallas ahead of Clark’s preseason debut.

On one hand, the players become household names in college basketball, where in many cases they fly private.

On the other, the league is entering its 28th season and has traditionally lost money and been subsidized by the NBA.

This past season, LSU star Flau’Jae Johnson railed that the WNBA does not treat players as “professional.”

Women’s college basketball has been much more popular with viewers over the years than the WNBA has been.

The women’s college basketball finals this drew 18.82 million viewers in April as Clark’s Iowa team took on undefeated South Carolina.

Last season’s WNBA Finals between the Liberty and Aces averaged 728,000 viewers — the highest total in 20 years.

Even before Clark was on the scene, the women’s college basketball finals generally drew three or four million viewers.

Nevertheless, the WNBA is clearly primed to get a big bump not just from Clark but from other incoming stars like Angel Reese, Kamilla Cardoso, Cameron Brink and eventually Paige Bueckers and JuJu Watkins.

There will soon be a depth of talent to support far more than 12 teams and ownership stakes have skyrocketed in value in the last several years.

In 2019, Joe and Clara Tsai bought the Liberty for what CNBC estimated was in the $10 million-$14 million range.

Last year, Warriors owners Joe Lacob and Peter Guber paid a $50 million expansion fee to launch a team in the Bay Area.

It would hardly be surprising for an expansion fee or franchise sale to reach nine figures by the end of the decade.