Swish

The GIST: The Dallas Wings may be having a tough time on the court as they sit at the bottom of the WNBA standings, but they’re making serious bank off of it. A recent 1% stake sale puts the WNBA team at a $208M valuation, a massive jump from Sportico’s $75M valuation for the team in June. Swish.

The investment: Memphis Grizzlies minority owner Jed Kaplan and hedge fund founder Randy Eisenman each bought a 0.5% stake worth $1.04M in early August, adding to recent investment trends in women’s sports. Investors are identifying women’s basketball as a growth opportunity and seeking available ownership stake, evidenced by the Seattle Storm’s minority stake sale in February.

• Veteran sports owners looking to build their basketball empires are pivoting to the W. In 2023, Joe Lacob re-entered the women’s basketball space with the Golden State Valkyries, while Larry Tanenbaum successfully rallied support in May to welcome Canada’s first WNBA team to Toronto.

The jump: Dallas’ franchise is learning to fly thanks to public and private investment. In April, the city gave the Wings a $19M incentive package to relocate to a renovated downtown venue in 2026, and Wings co-owner and CEO Greg Bibb announced the team was jumping on another burgeoning WNBA trend by building a new practice facility.

• However, this influx of money doesn’t entirely account for the sudden fluctuation in value. The jump is also likely tied to the W’s new media rights deal and surging audience, which has reset the value of the league. The price is (finally) right.

Looking ahead: Valuations are changing fast in the WNBA and NWSL — Angel City FC went from $180M to $250M in seven months, while the Wings soared from $75M to $208M in just two. Dallas’ stake sale proves that the W’s new media rights agreement has already raised the bar to unexpected (and still largely unknown) heights.

• The deal should also spur more investment beyond ownership. According to consulting firm Gather, 20% of Fortune 500 companies sponsor men’s sports leagues, while only 6% support the WNBA, NWSL, or PWHL — and none exclusively sponsor women’s sports.

• However, these leagues are proving fruitful for smaller, women-focused brands that are entering the sports sponsorship realm for the first time. In their rookie era.

The GIST: U.S. Olympic media partner NBCUniversal and Canadian broadcaster CBC released their final numbers from the 2024 Paris Olympics, proving the post-pandemic slump is over. The sky-high numbers also position them to cash in when they broadcast the Summer Games’ return to North America during LA28. Hella stoked.

📺 The 17 days of competition averaged 30.6M U.S. viewers across NBC platforms. This figure is the network’s biggest for the Olympics since London 2012 and is 82% higher than the average U.S. audience during Tokyo 2020.

• Paris’ popularity allowed NBC to continue the Summer Games’ 152-night streak as primetime’s No. 1 show and put USA Network atop cable TV through two weeks of competition. The Olympics also pushed NBC to the top primetime spot and USA Network into second among the 18-49 demo for 2024.

📱 Americans streamed 23.5B minutes of Olympic coverage across NBCU platforms. With prominent NBC streamer Peacock leading the charge, that number is 40% higher than streaming consumption for Tokyo 2020 and Beijing 2022 combined.

• It’s worth noting that over a quarter of Peacock viewers consumed Olympic coverage through the app’s novel multiview feature, which was rolled out this summer. NBC also debuted Gold Zone, a show offering whiparound coverage of Olympic highlights in real time that won over fans early in the Games.

💰 The Olympics were well worth the price tag for NBC. In 2011, the company signed the biggest Olympic media rights deal in history ($4.38B through 2020), superseded by 2014’s $7.75B extension through 2032. The 2014 deal is already paying dividends — NBC expected to pocket a record $1.25B in ad revenue for Paris alone.

• Plus, more than 70% of NBC’s 2024 sponsors were new and spent nearly $500M combined. This trend should continue through LA28 too, as the network has established a joint partner program that lets advertisers buy with NBC and enjoy Olympic spots. It pays to be the top Dogg.

🇨🇦 The Paris Olympics weren’t just a hit in the U.S. CBC revealed in its post-Olympic wrap report that 70% of Canadians (27M) tuned into the network’s Olympic coverage throughout the Games. This turnout is impressive, especially when considering that TSN and Sportsnet also competed with CBC for Olympic coverage, unlike NBC’s exclusive programming. Oh Canada!