Exclusive | WNBA will lose $40 million this season and its NBA investors are growing impatient

While the WNBA is getting sellout crowds for the finals between the New York Liberty and Minnesota Lynx, the league’s owners will not be making a return on their investment for the foreseeable future, sources close to the situation said. The NBA owns nearly 60 percent of the league.When one combines the NBA owners’ personal stakes in WNBA teams and the WNBA itself, the amount rises to 75 percent, a source with direct knowledge of the numbers said. The NBA team owners have invested hundreds of millions in the WNBA since its 1996 formation, per sources. “The WNBA owes the NBA so much we won’t see any windfall for years,” an NBA team executive told The Post. This season the WNBA will lose $40 million, a bit better than the $50 million forecast and reported by several media outlets months ago but still a loss, sources said. Starting in the 2026 season, the WNBA will get up to $2.2 billion over 11 years as part of the new basketball media contracts.

That means likely at least a $100 million annual increase from what the WNBA currently makes from national media contracts, which is around $60 million. The WNBA is also set to expand its regular-season and playoff schedule to generate more revenue. But the players are expected to opt out of the current collective bargaining contract by a Nov.1 deadline and, if they do, that means salaries are likely to rise, which would eat into that potential $60 million 2026 profit by the league — the $100M in television revenue turning the projected $40M loss into a $60M gain. “We are not even getting any money from WNBA expansion fees,” the NBA team executive said.

NBA owners do see money from NBA expansion fees. That means when Golden State Warriors owner Joe Lacob last year agreed to pay a $50 million expansion fee over 10 years to launch a WNBA team, and Raptors minority owner Larry Tanenbaum this year paid $115 million for a Toronto team and a new practice center none of the proceeds went to the NBA owners....