The 25th season of the WNBA is not yet around the corner but yesterday the league broke the news that in terms of broadcasting it will surely be different. During a press conference they announced a partnership with Twitter, Facebook Watch, Google, Paramount Plus and Oculus.
The intention of the WNBA is not to give up their broadcasting rights, but in instead it is to use social media as a channel to increase the league’s popularity. A recent study has shown that a good percentage of young women, after watching a game for the first time, become fans thereafter. So in other words they intend to spread the WNBA with the following strategy.
So in other words they intend to spread the WNBA with the following strategy. Twelve games will air on Twitter, in which tweets from fans will be displayed as part of the broadcast. Facebook will have the right to stream 20 WNBA games on its Watch Platform and its Oculus Quest and Quest 2 VR headsets, and three games will be shown on Paramount Plus.
Google will also be part of this new transmission strategy, joined by sponsors Deloitte, Nike, and AT&T as a WNBA “Changemaker.” Google says they will change the game and bring the WNBA free to all with the help of sponsors. The announcement was made by Google’s chief marketing officer Lorraine Twohill through an official company’s blog, Championing women’s sports with the WNBA and ESPN (blog.google).
We could clearly infer from the Twohill’s post, that deep broadcasting inclusion is the aim of the WNBA as we are every day more online and the fact that it’s free would be a no-brainer for news fans to join the game.
STREETOPIA could not be happier with yet another expansion of the women’s league!