The business of European pop and women's basketball
Marketplace All-in-One
Marketplace
4.5 • 1.4K Ratings
🗓️ 16 May 2025
⏱️ 8 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The Eurovision Song Contest was started in 1956 as an effort by a consortium of European broadcasters to use culture to unite the disparate countries of the emerging EU. Approaching 70 years of performances, 160 million could watch this year’s Eurovision, even in this age of streaming digital distractions. What's behind the staying power? But first, the WNBA season starts tonight after a breakout 2024, where attendance, viewership, and ad and merch sales all skyrocketed.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Truth is, federal funding for public media is at risk of being eliminated. |
| 0:05.3 | Without federal funds, local public radio stations across the country will struggle to acquire and broadcast marketplace. |
| 0:12.0 | That is a big impact on our bottom line as well. So we're turning to you at this critical time. |
| 0:17.7 | Individual donations are so important right now. Give to your local station. And if you can, please |
| 0:23.3 | donate directly to Marketplace as well. Go to Marketplace.org slash donate. And thank you. |
| 0:30.7 | On this May Friday morning, let's do the business of sport and the business of pop. I'm David Brancaccio |
| 0:37.4 | in Los Angeles. The pro-women's |
| 0:39.5 | basketball season begins tonight after a breakout 2024, where attendance was up 48%. Average |
| 0:45.9 | viewership for nationally televised games was the highest since the 90s. Ad and merchandise sales |
| 0:51.1 | skyrocketed as well. Marketplaces, Savannah Peters, has more on how the WNBA |
| 0:55.4 | plans to leverage that energy. The Indiana fever, that's the team that snagged superstar Caitlin |
| 1:01.7 | Clark in last year's WNBA draft, launched a very dramatic new ad campaign ahead of this season. |
| 1:09.3 | One of the players strolls onto the court in heels and a bright |
| 1:12.5 | red pantsuit. Some say we arrive because the world knows our name. Now you know, that was never |
| 1:19.1 | the destination. Now you know. That's the fever's message to all the new fans who started |
| 1:25.3 | tuning in during last year's blockbuster season. |
| 1:28.0 | We're not here for the moment. |
| 1:31.0 | We're here for the takeover. |
| 1:33.2 | The onus is on the WMBA marketers to try to not only capture the momentum, but elevate it. |
| 1:39.9 | Ketra Armstrong is a professor of sport management at the University of Michigan, and full |
| 1:45.2 | disclosure, a longtime WNBA fan. And she has never seen so much mainstream hype around women's |
| 1:52.0 | basketball. What do they call it, FOMO, the fear missing out? There's some people who will tune in just |
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