Take the hint

The GIST: Yesterday, Front Office Sports confirmed a women’s sports first: Two pro women’s teams from different leagues will share a new multimillion practice facility in Portland, Oregon. While six other cities have both WNBA and NWSL teams like Portland will in 2026, only PDX boasts both teams under the same ownership umbrella.

• The move not only highlights how practice facilities are becoming a major investment trend in the NWSL and WNBA, but also how sports teams and sponsors can benefit from shared ownership. Sharing is caring.

The details: The facility will be for the NWSL’s Thorns and the WNBA’s unnamed Portland squad and will cost $150M for construction and development. The site — a former Nike building — will open its doors ahead of the Thorns’ 2026 kickoff and the W team’s inaugural season.

• The two teams will be positioned on opposite ends of the facility with separate entrances, but they will share a central common area for use such as recovery, dining, and offices. The facility’s swanky planned amenities include strength training equipment, a recovery pool, massage room, and hyperbaric chambers.

The trend: Sharing training digs isn’t novel for men’s and women’s teams under the same ownership, but the women have usually received the short end of the stick. These days, franchise owners have realized that building premium facilities pays off in the form of rising valuations, which has spurred a trend of building world-class practice centers in the WNBA and NWSL.

• While only four WNBA teams have opened their own practice facility, including the Golden State Valkyries’ brand new one, there are another six teams with facilities in the works. Development is slower in the NWSL, although the KC Current already have their own facility while three other teams have plans for future ones.

Zooming out: The Bhathals have a unique advantage in being able to pool resources — and so do sponsors as a result. A deal with Portland ownership gives both local and multinational sponsors the ability to access multiple franchises across two of the most powerful leagues in women’s sports. Nothing spendy here.

The GIST: Yesterday, sports data platform Relo Metrics released a report on 2024 sponsorship across six major American sports leagues, including the WNBA. The leagues generated over $11B in sponsor media value (SMV) amid a 15% jump YoY in sports sponsorship, meaning this space is more profitable than ever — especially in rising leagues like the WNBA. And one.

💸 The WNBA’s audience is highly engaged, creating high ROI for brands. Despite its lower follower count, the W boasted the highest engagement rate across all six leagues on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and X. Relo credits the W’s embrace of player-focused content for these eye-popping numbers.

📈 Caitlin Clark is a cultural and economic force. The biggest moments in Clark’s 2024 season, such as her All-Star unveiling and first triple-double, accounted for the highest points of social media value for the WNBA. Clark also averaged $17.2K in value per Instagram post for Indiana Fever partners, which is over 10x the value of posts from the team’s own account.

• Clark also drove up value for her team and its key sponsors, like insurance giant Gainbridge. The Indianapolis-based company ranked 37th among financial brands with nearly $7.4M in SMV, with the Fever contributing to 46% of that value. A real team player.

📱 Video content is winning over audiences. The WNBA led all six leagues in branded content value on TikTok, where users have proven to be engaged sports fans. Overall, the W’s branded video content offered 34% more value per post than still images.

• While image-based campaigns work well in big leagues like the NFL, sponsors have a prime opportunity in smaller leagues with highly-engaged social audiences like the WNBA, which boasts a high percentage of Gen Z fans.

📍 The age-old adage still applies: Location, location, location. Branding placement matters for WNBA advertisers looking to maximize reach. For example, a WNBA jersey patch deal earned a SMV of $10.5M, nearly equivalent to an MLB dugout placement ($11.2M) or an NFL press media backdrop placement ($10.1M).

• Plus, ad placements that logged the most screen time tended to perform best. WNBA floor court logos averaged 1:12 minutes of exposure per game and earned a media value percentage (MVP) score of 15%, only 11 seconds fewer than the NBA’s floor court logo exposure that generated a 29% MVP score. Hoop there it is.

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