Sabrina Ionescu Says the WNBA Is at a “Breaking Point” For Change

Sabrina Ionescu has been difficult at function.

Last period, the New York Liberty guard performed tirelessly alongside her crew to get to the WNBA championship, only to be defeated by the Las Vegas Aces in a 70-69 ultimate sport. But this offseason and preseason has been “my greatest one so significantly,” Ionescu tells PS in an unique job interview tied to her partnership with CarMax, the sponsor for the WNBA period suggestion-off.

In the months foremost up to the 2024 season, Ionescu has been focused on a 360-diploma strategy to her health and fitness. That is provided doing bloodwork and well being assessments to enable determine the diet, restoration, sleep, and specially hydration procedures that will ideal serve her entire body and her match this calendar year.

As a final result, she feels extra than all set to go up towards the roster of competitors. And that counts this year’s rookie class, which consists of collegiate phenoms Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and Cameron Brink.

But Ionescu will not see them as opposition at all, telling PS, “I do not seriously glimpse at it that way.” She’s has liked viewing the rookies “drive our league in the right direction” — it’s thrilling, she adds, not intimidating. “You will find just so several more admirers that are now pursuing our league [who] have followed people people today in university and now are ready to variety of be supporters of the WNBA. And I assume which is so significant, specifically with the expansion of our league.”

In excess of the earlier couple yrs, the WNBA has viewed a surge of both viewership and financial investment in the league. In 2023, the league noticed 36 million whole distinctive viewers in its typical time across all national networks, the greatest considering that 2008. The WNBA also brought in additional than $200 million in income, a 200%-plus 12 months-in excess of-calendar year maximize. And ticket product sales for the league have also skyrocketed — up 93% compared to very last 12 months, for each Stubhub info.

With this meteoric increase in fascination has come welcomed change, Ionescu says — like the W’s expansion to Toronto and the Bay Location, and the choice to invest in charter flights for the teams, the latter of which Ionescu is particularly thrilled about.

With much less time expended in airports and additional time for restoration and apply, “you can find heading to be superior item on the court docket and which is what’s by significantly the most vital detail,” Ionescu suggests.

On other fronts, the league proceeds to slide small, she tells PS. A key case in point: the WNBA’s missed possibility to stream the Chicago Sky’s pre-season recreation (Angel’s Reese’s WNBA debut) on League Go from the Minnesota Lynx, regardless of streaming other game titles like Caitlin Clark’s debut with the Indiana Fever. (A fan’s dwell stream of the Sky vs. Lynx game amassed over 2 million sights, by the way!)

These forms of mishaps carry on to frustrate the New York Liberty participant. “I just really feel like we need to take extra of a proactive tactic than a reactive and understanding that the league has hardly ever witnessed what it is viewing appropriate now in conditions of the visibility, the chat, the attendance — just the turn in how women’s sports and our league as a complete is considered,” Ionescu tells PS.

Although the three-point-capturing star says she’s providing the league some grace as they navigate the boost in viewership, Ionescu also worries that these kinds of “hiccups” could lead to fans not wanting to comply with and look at. “I consider the more accessibility we can create for our league as a complete and throughout all groups, not just a couple groups, the far better it will be in terms of attendance and viewership and financial commitment in our league,” Ionescu claims.

Even though the league reexamines their ideas for viewership, she also hopes they take a look at the finances, as the conversation all around the pay out equity gap carries on to swirl. For context, the WNBA has usually experienced a fork out gap owing to various aspects, which includes the actuality that participant contracts don’t include revenue sharing and the audience viewership as opposed to the NBA. Salaries stay somewhat lower for these factors and many WNBA gamers decide to perform abroad in the course of the offseason to nutritional supplement their cash flow — a thing Ionescu isn’t going to think they need to have to do.

“We understand that we’re not driving in the similar money that the NBA is at this time, and we are also just a more recent league. And so I really don’t imagine anybody a portion of the WNBA is sitting listed here demanding there to be complete equality throughout the board — I feel it can be just knowing that we require to be capable to make a living and we deserve to not have to go abroad,” she tells PS.

That claimed, the Collective Bargaining Arrangement (CBA), techniques renegotiation in November. That coupled with the rise in viewership, attendance, and a probable new media legal rights offer could be the excellent storm of ammunition to advocate for superior fork out, Ionescu says. “It really is about time that we get what we are entitled to,” Ionescu suggests — and she feels pretty self-assured that the time is now.

“I am thrilled to be a aspect of a league right now that’s at that breaking place,” Ionescu, including that it’s not just the player’s advocacy that will enable them get there. It starts off with every person, she tells PS. “It starts off with expenditure. It commences with coming to a sport, showing up, purchasing League Go. As that carries on to rise, so will our revenue.”

Alexis Jones is the senior overall health and exercise editor at PS. Her passions and regions of abilities involve women’s health and fitness and conditioning, mental health, racial and ethnic disparities in health care, and serious problems. Prior to becoming a member of PS, she was the senior editor at Well being journal. Her other bylines can be identified at Women’s Wellbeing, Prevention, Marie Claire, and more.