Inside USA Basketball’s Gold-Standard Mindset with Elena Delle Donne and the WNBA's Booming Business

A Touch More with Sue Bird & Megan Rapinoe

The Vox Media Podcast Network

Soccer, Basketball, Sports

4.4 • 765 Ratings

🗓️ 6 November 2025

⏱️ 75 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

We’re nearly a month out from the WNBA Finals, but we still have a lot to discuss. We start with the WNBA’s booming business, its growth in viewership, and some of the new demographics tuning in. But we also look at the historic ways in which WNBA viewership was suppressed despite the demand for women’s basketball. (For those who want to learn more, the quotes we reference during this discussion come from Those Guys Have All the Fun, by James Andrew Miller and Tom Shales). Also on the agenda: how past CBA negotiations are playing out in the league today, including prioritization and playoff bonus money. Then we welcome WNBA legend Elena Delle Donne, who helped grow the league when she joined in 2013 as part of the “The Three to See,” along with Brittney Griner and Skylar Diggins. Elena Delle Donne talks about what she misses and doesn’t miss about playing pro, how she built a life off the court during her career, and what it was like to practice in a local rec center. Plus, she describes the nerve-wracking achievement of being the first WNBA player to enter the 50-40-90 club, and what it was like to welcome Napheesa Collier to the exclusive club. A Touch More: The Podcast is produced in partnership with VOX MEDIA and TOGETHXR. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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1:12.5	Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the show. This week, we've got a great episode. I mean, they're all
1:19.2	great. We're going to be talking about the WMBA. Obviously, the season is now been over,
1:24.7	but we're going to do a little bit of a season in review from a business
1:27.6	standpoint. There was all kinds of historic numbers. Sadly, we're also going to tell a story
1:32.6	that was reported by DailyW Sports about the suppression. When it began, we always knew that it was
	...

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