Or at the midpoint of a Wnba season that's been like no other record setting numbers on the court in the stands and on television and now as John Yang reports a big new television deal that may signal a new era for the league.

The WNBA has been around since 1996, but it seems that a lot of people may be paying attention to it for the first time

Attendance is the highest it's been since the 1990s and viewership is up

183% from last season.

League plays on pause right now for this weekend's all-star game in Phoenix

and for Olympic competition starting later this month in France.

Sabrina Merchant is a woman's basketball writer for the athletic.

She is in Phoenix for the all-star game.

Sabrina, what accounts for this surge in popularity?

I think there's a variety of factors but you really have to drill it down to this year's

rookie class specifically Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese and the dramatic fan

followings they brought in from college basketball. They had two of the most highly viewed

college games of all time in the 2023 national championship game between I-1 LSU

and then once again in the elite eight in 2024

and the rivalry between those two

and the momentum that it created

for college basketball has just taken its step

into the WMBA.

So I think the seeds for growth in the WMBA have obviously been

planted ahead of time, but I would say that Clark and Reese have been the accelerant that's

created this dramatic rise this year. And Clark and Reese have been compared to two other players who shared a rookie year,

Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.

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