Thomas, Louisa. “The Caitlin Clark Rules.” The New Yorker, 22 June 2025, www.newyorker.com/sports/sporting-scene/the-caitlin-clark-rules. Accessed 24 June 2025.
In this feature, Thomas explores how Caitlin Clark has become a flashpoint for conversations not just about sports, but about gender, race, media, and power. Thomas draws parallels between Clark and Michael Jordan in terms of cultural marketability while also highlighting how scrutiny and expectations placed on Clark are shaped by narratives of whiteness and femininity in professional women’s basketball. The article describes the tension between visibility and vulnerability, arguing that Clark’s meteoric rise has not only boosted WNBA visibility and revenue, but also reignited debates about equity within women’s sports more broadly. This piece is especially useful for our project because it pushes beyond statistics and audience growth to analyze the deeper cultural meaning behind Clark’s popularity. It helps explain how her presence in the league functions both as a catalyst for commercial success and as a site of controversy. While the article is more interpretive than data-driven, its insight into the media discourse and fan response to Clark adds vital context to understanding the WNBA’s current moment. For our timeline and analysis of media narratives, this article supports our argument that cultural framing, not just athletic performance, has fueled the league’s explosive growth in 2024–25.
Courtney. “WNBA Leads Online Search Growth in Global Sports Properties 2025 SportOnSocial Report - Ministry of Sport.” Ministry of Sport, 30 May 2025, ministryofsport.com/wnba-leads-online-search-growth-in-global-sports-properties-2025-sportonsocial-report/. Accessed 25 June 2025.
This article highlights the WNBA’s unprecedented rise in digital visibility, as measured by the 2025 SportOnSocial Report. The league moved from 83rd to 1st place among global sports entities in terms of online search growth, surpassing major leagues like the NFL and NBA. The report credits athletes like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese for dramatically boosting media traffic, digital interactions, and overall engagement. This data-driven source is valuable to our project because it provides clear, quantifiable evidence of how media buzz has contributed to the WNBA’s recent surge in popularity. It connects directly to our research question about the role of online discourse in shaping national enthusiasm for the league. The article also reinforces the idea that younger audiences are interacting with sports content in new ways, particularly through media, which aligns with our broader argument about digital culture’s influence. While the article does not explore cultural changes deeply, its strength lies in presenting concrete metrics and a global perspective. For our project, it complements more narrative-based sources by grounding our claims in empirical trends and helping us visualize the scope of the league’s digital footprint.
Reuters Staff. “Paige Bueckers’ WNBA Debut Drives Huge Ratings Bump.” Reuters, 21 May 2025, www.reuters.com/sports/paige-bueckers-wnba-debut-drives-huge-ratings-bump-2025-05-21/.
This article reports that Paige Bueckers’s very first WNBA game with the Dallas Wings attracted an average of 612,000 viewers, a 121 percent increase over the comparable 2024 broadcast window on Ion, which marks one of the biggest single-game viewership surges in recent league history. The clear headline “huge ratings bump” captures her immediate influence in elevating the WNBA’s TV presence. Beyond summarizing the numbers, the piece situates Bueckers in the context of the "Caitlin Clark effect," suggesting a rising trend where marquee rookies are linked to spikes in audience attention. This source is essential for our project because it offers empirical, media-based evidence that complements cultural, economic, and attendance trends. By demonstrating that Bueckers can trigger significant viewership increases, even as a rookie, it supports our argument that new star athletes are amplifying the WNBA's growth. The limitation of the article is its focus on one single game; it doesn’t explore whether this was sustained or how this translates into long-term fandom or revenue. Still, for our “media exposure” and “broadcast impact” sections, it serves as a pivotal anchor.
Together, these three sources illustrate how the WNBA’s recent surge in popularity is not just the result of one standout player, but the culmination of digital visibility, cultural narratives, and a new generation of marketable athletes. Louisa Thomas’ New Yorker article situates Caitlin Clark as a symbol whose media presence and cultural positioning have stirred public debate and drawn record attention to the league. This qualitative, reflective piece offers insight into the social framing and emotional weight of Clark’s rise, helping us analyze how individual players become vessels for broader tensions around gender and race in sports. In contrast, the Ministry of Sport article quantifies the WNBA’s growth by showing its leap to #1 in global online search growth, attributing this spike to digital engagement around players like Clark and Angel Reese. The article shows how fandom has shifted to social-first platforms, helping us support claims about the power of online discourse. Finally, the Reuters article on Paige Bueckers expands the narrative beyond Clark, showing that other rookies are also generating major ratings boosts. It confirms that this moment is not a one-player phenomenon but part of a larger wave driven by a new cohort of charismatic, college-developed stars. Together, these sources give us the cultural framing, hard data, and trend confirmation needed to support our argument that media narratives and athlete visibility have reshaped the WNBA’s popularity in 2024–25.
Stumbaugh, Julia “WNBA Regular-Season Attendance Up 48% from 2023 in Caitlin Clark, Reese Rookie Year”
Bleacher Report, 2024
https://bleacherreport.com/articles/10137041-wnba-regular-season-attendance-up-48-from-2023-in-caitlin-clark-reese-rookie-year Accessed 23 June 2025.
Julia Stumbaugh’s article “WNBA Regular-Season Attendance Up 48% from 2023 in Caitlin Clark, Reese Rookie Year” presents evidence that the 2024 WNBA season experienced a 48% increase in regular-season attendance compared to the previous year, largely driven by the arrival of rookie stars Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. The article is fairly straightforward and data-driven, and references multiple reputable sources. The article also measures the league-wide impact of these players in terms of fan engagement, and media attention. This article is going to be very valuable to our project because it quantifies the narrative that certain star athletes are changing the visibility and popularity of women’s professional sports, which is crucial for our project.
However, it is important to note that the article lacks deeper economic analysis or long-term context. It doesn’t address how sustainable these attendance gains might be or what structural changes such as investment changes or large media deals might be accompanying the Caitlin Clark-driven surge in interest. However, it’s still a very good source because it gives us a recent feel on the immediate effects of new star players’ entries into the league. I think it will be useful for referencing to ground our project’s narrative in hard attendance data and establishing a baseline for analyzing recent shifts in public engagement with the WNBA.
Nerkar, Santul “For Women’s Basketball, Caitlin Clark’s Lasting Impact May Be Economic”
The New York Times, 2024
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/20/business/caitlin-clark-womens-sports-economics.html. Accessed 23 June 2025.
In this article, Santul Nerkar explores the broader economic implications of Caitlin Clark’s rise in women’s basketball, suggesting how her influence could permanently reshape the financial aspect of women’s sports altogether. Nerkar supports this claim by citing a reputable Deloitte study that showed how sponsorships in women’s professional sports increased 22 percent in 2023, compared with a 24 percent increase in men’s sports. He also highlights a shift in corporate attention, and increased television coverage as signs of growing aggregate interest in women’s basketball. This source is valuable not only for contextualizing Clark’s impact within a global trend but also for emphasizing how individual athletes can drive systemic changes.
While the article effectively presents an economic narrative, it leans heavily on recent trends and lacks long-term analysis. It could definitely benefit from a more rigorous exploration of causality by looking into how much of this economic growth is actually attributed to single players versus broader shifts in gender equity, or changing audience demographics? Nevertheless, this article is highly relevant to our project because it provides the theoretical and economic framework that complements our data.
The articles by Stumbaugh and Nerkar work together to create a multi-layered framework of how star players impact women’s sports. Stumbaugh’s work provides concrete evidence that Clark and Reese’s arrival has led to a measurable, immediate increase in fan turnout. Meanwhile, Nerkar’s piece zooms out to assess how Clark’s influence may have more far-reaching implications beyond the court through sponsorship deals, and the financial future of women’s sports globally. Used together, these sources help us tell a more complete story that connects cultural hype to economic movement. While both sources are recent and therefore reflect only the early stages of this change, their combined value lies in showing the impact of a single star athlete’s entrance into the professional space. Our project will benefit from this dual approach that uses qualitative metrics to establish the scope of public interest, and data driven analysis to explore how that interest might reshape institutional support for women’s basketball. These sources will also help shape our visualizations and site design.
"The Caitlin Clark Effect: How One Player Is Driving Unprecedented Growth in the WNBA." Azee Branding, azeebranding.com/the-caitlin-clark-effect-how-one-player-is-driving-unprecedented-growth-in-the-wnba/#:~:text=The%20Role%20of%20Media%20and%20Social%20Engagement&text=Social%20media%20is%20another%20area,and%20engaging%20for%20younger%20audiences. Accessed 23 June 2025.
Azee Branding provides insight on what has been the WNBA’s direct reason for success: Caitlin Clark. The fanbase that Clark went into the league with has been larger than any other WNBA player past or present, and many have compared her impact on the league to be as large or even larger than Michael Jordan’s impact on the NBA. Her numbers tell a similar story, one that shows a direct correlation between her social success and the media success of the WNBA.
This source provides further evidence of media’s importance as an evaluator of success and deeper connections to an online community. However, the feminist influence isn’t carried by a community of media activists, but rather converged on one specific athlete. The feminist movement has waited decades for a female basketball player of Clark’s ability, and has now shined a bright light upon her in the digital world. Using media as a tool of empowerment, the feminist movement has found new momentum behind their star leader.
This source should be included in our project to highlight the feminist aspect of our digital humanities project. This source can help inform viewers of the project about the necessity for the project in the first place, not simply as a WNBA fan project, but a project that highlights the necessity for feminism in all aspects of society. While the source doesn’t highlight the many female basketball stars who influenced basketball before Clark, it shows the correlation between a greater acceptance of feminism in society, and the WNBA’s popularity and growth.
Rezai. “Data Stories for/from All: Why Data Feminism is for Everyone.” Digital Humanities Quarterly, vol. 15, no. 2, 2022, https://dhq.digitalhumanities.org/vol/16/2/000618/000618.html. Accessed 23 June 2025.
In this article, Yasamin Rezai builds on the work of D’Ignazio and Klein to make the case that data feminism is not only a gendered framework, but an inclusive and power-aware methodology for producing ethical data. Rezai particularly highlights the importance of context in data analysis, arguing that “letting the numbers speak for themselves” is not only insufficient, but harmful more often than not. She rigorously relates these ideas to the core principles of the digital humanities by stressing the moral responsibility of scholars to challenge dominant systems of power, especially in areas where data has historically excluded marginalized voices. This article is specifically useful to the purposes of our project as it reinforces the theoretical foundation of our data analysis—that data must be thoroughly contextualized. By rooting our approach in data feminism, we are better positioned to analyze the rise in WNBA popularity through a lens that considers systemic gender inequality and the power of digital discourse. The article’s primary limitation is that it remains more theoretical than practical, lacking concrete methodological steps for implementation. However, its conceptual clarity is critical as we seek to apply these frameworks to real-world metrics like media chatter and game attendance in women’s sports.
Kelly, Megan R, et al. “Reframing the Conversation: Digital Humanists, Disabilities, and Accessibility.” Debates in the Digital Humanities, dhdebates.gc.cuny.edu/read/debates-in-the-digital-humanities-2023/section/c389972a-3d63-4025-b5c2-e4f108e43e0d. Accessed 23 June 2025.
This collaboratively authored chapter challenges the digital humanities community to reframe accessibility not as an add-on feature, but as a foundational moral commitment. The authors contend that accessibility must be integrated into the entire lifecycle of a digital project—from design to implementation—and not simply following completion. They emphasize that accessibility is not only about technical compliance but about building inclusive and participatory scholarly spaces. For our project, focused on the WNBA, this reading drives both our design choices and positional understanding of accessibility in digital humanities. It has shaped our approach to building impactful data visualizations and web content that are usable by all, including those with visual, auditory, or motor impairments. Practically, the chapter urges us to mandate features like screen-reader compatibility, keyboard navigability, and high-contrast visual options. One limitation of this piece is that it does not name or suggest industry-standard tools for implementing the accessibility it discusses. However, its principles are broadly applicable and offer a moral and practical foundation for ensuring our project is not only inclusive in theory but in practice. Put simply, this text positions our project as a public-facing report that also aligns with the best practices and values of the digital humanities.
“WNBA All-Game Attendance.” Data Explorer - across the Timeline - Stats, Facts, and Memories from the Storied History of Women’s Basketball, www.acrossthetimeline.com/wnba/data.html#. Accessed 24 June 2025.
This data hub compiles detailed WNBA statistics, including game-by-game attendance records since the female league’s inception. It offers a comprehensive and richly dataset that allows users to view attendance by season, team, and game, making it invaluable for tracking patterns in fan engagement. For our project, this source provides empirical support for the narrative that WNBA visibility and public support are at historic highs. It allows us to anchor theoretical concepts like media influence and its intersection with feminism within quantifiable public behavior. For instance, we can directly correlate media milestones with spikes in attendance, offering insights into how digital enthusiasm translates into real-world viewership and in-person engagement. A major strength of this source is its extensive filtering capabilities and full timeline. However, a key limitation is the absence of contextual annotations: the data does not hint at why spikes occurred or how external factors may have influenced attendance trends. Nevertheless, its empirical value as a primary dataset cannot be overstated and will play a central role in the analytical and visualization components of our project.
Min B Kim D Sung W “An Analysis of Broadcasting Media Using Social Media Engagement in the WNBA” PMC 2021
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8160370/
This empirical study examines how different broadcast platforms such as cable streaming and social clips affect game day engagement on WNBA team Twitter accounts. It identifies key drivers such as team performance and media outlet that spur spikes in online discussion. We use this source to ground our project in measurable patterns of social media activity tied directly to televised exposure helping us link mainstream broadcast events to subsequent public enthusiasm online.
Edarvin L “Angel Reese Caitlin Clark And Cameron Brink Bring WNBA Fan Engagement To New Heights Data Shows” Forbes 14 May 2024
https://www.forbes.com/sites/lindseyedarvin/2024/05/14/angel-reese-caitlin-clark-cameron-brink-usher-in-new-era-of-wnba-fan-engagementnew-data-shows/
Drawing on social media metrics and follower counts this article demonstrates how star rivalries and personal branding drive massive engagement growth. It connects directly to our focus on athlete led narratives by quantifying how player posts translate into league wide buzz illustrating the mechanism by which individual voices shape national support.
Relo Metrics “WNBA Teams Generated Record $136 Million in Sponsor Media Value for Brands as Social Media Engagement Soars” BusinessWire 28 Oct 2024
https://press.relometrics.com/wnba-teams-generated-record-136-million-in-sponsor-media-value-for-brands-as-social-media-engagement-soars-according-to-new-report-from-relo-metrics
This industry report ties social media engagement figures to tangible economic impact sponsor media value demonstrating that online enthusiasm yields real financial returns. We leverage these findings to argue that social media conversations not only reflect fan passion but also incentivize corporate investment reinforcing national support.
How the WNBA Is Building on a Breakthrough Season With Fans Brands Marketing Dive 16 May 2025
https://www.marketingdive.com/news/how-the-wnba-is-building-on-a-breakthrough-season-with-fans-brands/748243/
Analyzing the league’s Viewer Discretion campaign and integrated social media strategies this piece shows how the WNBA is translating online narratives into broader marketing efforts. It informs our discussion of how league led social campaigns amplify athlete generated content and sustain fan engagement beyond game days.
Lisec J P S “Gender Inequality in the New Millennium A Narrative Analysis of WNBA Representations in New Media” PhD diss Ohio University 2023
https://etd.ohiolink.edu/acprod/odb_etd/ws/send_file/send?accession=miami1283393974&disposition=inline
This dissertation offers a deep dive into how new media blogs reproduce or challenge traditional gender narratives in WNBA coverage. Its narrative analysis framework guides our approach to sentiment analysis on fan driven platforms helping us contextualize whether online discourse reinforces or disrupts historical biases against women’s sports.
Women Professional Athletes and Their Personal Brands on Social Media An Analysis of 2020 and 2021 WNBA Player Photos on Instagram ResearchGate June 2025
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/392969130_Women_professional_athletes_and_their_personal_brands_on_social_media_an_analysis_of_2020_and_2021_WNBA_player_photos_on_Instagram
By examining how WNBA players craft visual identities on Instagram this study illuminates the strategies athletes use to build authentic connections with fans. It directly informs our project’s interest in personal brand building as a driver of national enthusiasm providing coding schemes and analytic techniques for assessing visual sentiment.
Broughton D “WNBA’s 2024 Season Earns Brands $136 Million in Media Value” Sports Business Journal 28 Oct 2024
https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2024/10/29/Unpacks/wnba-relo-report/
Complementing the Relo Metrics press release this article in a leading trade publication discusses the methodology behind sponsor value calculations and highlights case studies of media driven brand wins. We cite it to underscore the credibility of linking online engagement metrics to league growth narratives.
WNBA. “History.” WNBA.com - Official Site of the WNBA, 2023, www.wnba.com/history .
This official WNBA webpage offers an authoritative overview of the league’s milestones, including its founding in 1996, inaugural season in 1997, evolution of team franchises, championship history, etc. As a primary source, it is very reliable for factual league chronology and institutional context and crucial for establishing a factual backbone for any historical narrative about the WNBA.
Nast, Condé. “The Women of the WNBA Are Leading the Way for Activism in Sports—and Have Been for Years.” Glamour, 3 Sept. 2020, www.glamour.com/story/the-women-of-the-wnba-are-leading-the-way-for-activism-in-sports-and-have-been-for-years .
This feature explores the WNBA’s long history of activism, spotlighting how players have advocated for racial justice, LGBTQ+ rights, voting access, and more. Nast offers a well-researched and culturally aware perspective, citing examples like the 2016 Black Lives Matter statements and the extensive 2020 social justice activism. It also situates today’s activism within a broader historical arc, making clear these efforts are not sudden or opportunistic but deeply rooted.