Female sports are about to hit new income records in 2025, after exceeding more than a billion dollars in revenue for the first time in 2024.
According to a new Deloitte report, a financial service and consulting company, Women’s Sports is expected to earn $ 2.35 billion worldwide in 2025, an increase of 25% compared to a record of $ 1.88 billion produced last year.
“We do not see that growth slows down anytime soon,” said Pen Peter Giorgio, head of the World Sports Group in Deloitte. “In fact, I would not be surprised if he accelerated here in the years to come.”
The advisory giant, which is advisor to the WNBA and the NWSL, identified basketball as a major growth engine, the sport planned to exceed football in 2025 as the most winning female sport. The Deloitte report projects the female basketball income alone to exceed $ 1 billion in 2025, a marked leap of $ 710 million last year, as star players such as Caitlin Clark And Angel Reese Boost sales and goods sales and will stimulate more investment in WNBA franchise facilities.
“The stars are part of it, (and) I think you also see a maturation of the industry itself to support these stars and to drive a large part of this growth alongside,” said Giorgio.
THE Indiana fever There are one of the many teams to announce plans to build dedicated practice facilities. The new $ 78 million installation of the fever should open in time for the 2027 season. Meanwhile, expansion Golden State Valkyries Unveiled a recently renovated training center in Oakland last month.
“We say that we want to be the best. We say that we want to attract the best talents. We say that we care about the results and leveling of this league,” the president of Valkyries, Jess Smith, told ESPN last month. “Well, what does that mean? Having the conversation about the facilities was really a demonstration of the commitment of this property group.”
The Valkyries belong to Joe Lacob and Peter Guber, who also owned the NBAs Golden State Warriors.
WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said that the League at 12 teams was aimed at 16 clubs by 2028 and has already engaged in new franchises in San Francisco, Portland and Toronto. Robust growth attracts several potential property groups for the 16th franchise in the WNBA, bidders surfaced in Detroit, Cleveland and Nashville – the cities in the running to house the 16th franchise.
“We know that (female sports) was an undervalued asset, right?” Said Giorgio. “And these markets, that investors, that the marks were going to wake up. And I think that is what we see right now, people wake up.
Deloitte’s projections were based on three categories of income: the day of the game, media rights and commercial income, such as sponsorships and sales of goods. In 2025, Deloitte expects commercial income to achieve the biggest gains in the three categories, because certain brands that have not sponsored sports are attracted to a differentiated audience in female sports.
“Women’s sport offers these brands another opportunity to engage in what we think is a fairly unexploited market at this stage,” said Jennifer Haskel, co-author of the Deloitte report.
While investments continue to be made, significant differences in access to resources remain. A recent FIFA study has shown that the average world gross salary for a professional football player costs only $ 10,900, an increased number by lower level football leagues. Wages should be a major problem in the talks of the WNBA players with the League for a new collective agreement. Clark, for example, should earn just over $ 78,000 in 2025 – less than half of what the average professional pickleball player can do it on tour.
The association of WNBA players chose to leave the ABC current last October, two years before its planned expiration, to negotiate a new agreement which reflects the growth of the League.