Pass the remote

The GIST: The WNBA saw the Caitlin Clark Effect play out on the court this weekend in a sold-out preseason game between the Indiana Fever and Dallas Wings. But the league’s decision to keep the game — and the popular WNBA Canada preseason game — exclusively available on WNBA League Pass in the U.S. may have been a missed bucket for the league.

The attendance: Clark played in front of a sold-out crowd of over 6.2K fans in Dallas this weekend, while Edmonton hosted 16.6K at Rogers Place for the second annual WNBA Canada game on Saturday. The preseason matchup up north sold out for the second consecutive year after 19.9K fans showed up at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena last May.

The strategy: In the U.S., both of these games were only available on WNBA League Pass. This was likely an intentional — and perhaps effective — strategy to drive sign-ups to the streaming service. Since most of Clark’s Fever games will air nationally, this was the W’s rare shot to use her fame to draw new subscribers.

• The W wouldn’t be the first to limit viewership to its app. NBC made the same choice when it aired Clark’s record-breaking game exclusively on Peacock. It worked wonders when the streamer did this for the NFL Playoffs, but the NFL already has a massive fandom while the W is still trying to grow the game.

The difficulties: To make matters worse, the League Pass stream ran into some problems, such as missing scores and times on the livestream as well as glitchy game stats on the official WNBA page. The mishaps even prompted fans to step in — after the app incorrectly listed the Chicago Sky game as available to watch, a fan attending the game livestreamed it.

• The fan’s stream garnered 434K total views with a 173.3K viewership peak, which isn’t surprising considering the Sky drafted two of college’s biggest stars: Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso. The WNBA pivoted accordingly and has now added the Sky’s upcoming game vs. the New York Liberty to League Pass.

Zooming out: As Clark’s rise continues, the WNBA is going to have to carefully consider how to leverage her popularity as a business opportunity. In the meantime, the W could benefit from leveraging its broadcast partners to help grow its fanbase before pushing its app. Gotta grow the game by showing the game.

The GIST: On Thursday, the Billie Jean King (BJK) Cup extended its partnership with Microsoft through 2026. It focuses on developing tech solutions for the women’s national team tennis tournament by utilizing the Azure cloud platform, allowing Microsoft to flex its computing muscles in women’s sports amid explosive sector growth. A data set.

The details: Microsoft first partnered with the tourney in September 2020, when the tech giant gave BJK Cup Finals teams access to data through an Azure-supported dashboard that tracked player movement, scoring, and shot data.

• Microsoft reported a strong Q3 thanks to its Azure cloud sector spurring 31% revenue growth, which caused total revenue to increase 17% YoY. The company is now doubling down on analytics and AI as it projects $64B in revenue during its next quarter.

Women’s sports involvement: Aside from its BJK Cup partnership, Microsoft has made calculated moves to promote its Azure platform in a sports capacity. The WNBA has used Azure to rate buzzer-beater heroics to calculate win probability, and Microsoft has also assisted individual teams such as the WNBA’s Atlanta Dream in 2022 and the NWSL’s Reign FC in 2016.

• Microsoft is an early adopter in the women’s sports space, which bodes well for a tech company looking to leverage its data analytics in an increasingly crowded sports market. BJK Ltd chair Ilana Kloss noted that Microsoft was one of the first partners to join the event after it rebranded in 2020. Signed on.

Zooming out: Microsoft competitor IBM has been in the tennis space for over 30 years through its US Open partnership, proving that it’s a friendly environment for AI and analytics. It’s smart to see Microsoft apply this to women’s tennis, especially as the sports analytics industry is expected to jump from $3B to $12B by 2030. Keeping an eye on the top servers.