''WNBA on ABC'' is an

American television Television is one of the Mass media in the United States, major mass media outlets in the United States. In 2011, 96.7% of households owned television sets; about 114,200,000 American households owned at least one television set each in August ...

sports presentation show broadcast by

ABC ABC are the first three letters of the Latin script. ABC or abc may also refer to: Arts, entertainment and media Broadcasting * Aliw Broadcasting Corporation, Philippine broadcast company * American Broadcasting Company, a commercial American ...

. It premiered on May 24, 2003. The consist of branding used for presentation of

Women's National Basketball Association The Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) is a women's professional basketball league in the United States. The league comprises 13 teams (scheduled to expand to 15 in 2026). The WNBA is headquartered in Midtown Manhattan. The WNBA w ...

Background

In the early years, two women's-oriented networks, Lifetime and

Oxygen Oxygen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol O and atomic number 8. It is a member of the chalcogen group (periodic table), group in the periodic table, a highly reactivity (chemistry), reactive nonmetal (chemistry), non ...

, also broadcast games including the first game of the WNBA.

NBC The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. It is one of NBCUniversal's ...

showed games from 1997 to 2002 as part of their ''

NBA on NBC Television broadcasts of the National Basketball Association (NBA) games produced by NBC Sports has aired on American broadcast network NBC under the ''NBA on NBC'' branding throughout three incarnations in its history. The NBA was first telev ...

'' coverage before the league transferred the rights to ABC/ESPN.

Coverage breakdown

In June 2007, the WNBA signed a contract extension with

ESPN ESPN (an initialism of their original name, which was the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by the Walt Disney Company (80% and operational control) and Hearst Commu ...

. The new television deal ran from 2009 to 2016. A minimum of 18 games would be broadcast on ABC, ESPN, and ESPN2 each season; the rights to broadcast the first regular-season game and the All-Star Game were held by ABC. Additionally, a minimum of 11 postseason games would be broadcast on any of the three stations. Along with this deal, came the first-ever rights fees to be paid to a women's professional sports league. Over the eight years of the contract, "millions and millions of dollars" would be "dispersed to the league's teams". *

WNBA All-Star Game The Women's National Basketball Association All-Star Game, commonly referred to as the WNBA All-Star Game, is an annual exhibition basketball game played in the United States between the best players of the Western and Eastern Conference of ...

* Select WNBA regular season games * Select Sunday game of the

WNBA Finals The WNBA Finals is the championship series of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) and the conclusion of the league's postseason each fall. The series was named the WNBA Championship until 2002. The series is played between the win ...

(usually the first scheduled Sunday game airing at 3:30 PM ET) Initially, Saturday and Sunday afternoon games were broadcast on

. But over time that changed. For 2013, only one game was shown on ABC on Saturday, June 8, and thirteen games were shown on ESPN2 on five different days of the week (no WNBA games were shown on Sunday or Friday on ESPN2). On opening day for the 2008 season (May 17), ABC broadcast the

Los Angeles Sparks The Los Angeles Sparks are an American professional basketball team based in Los Angeles. The Sparks compete in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) as a member of the Western Conference. The team plays its home games at Crypto.co ...

and

Phoenix Mercury The Phoenix Mercury are an American professional basketball team based in Phoenix, Arizona. The Mercury compete in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) as a member of the Western Conference. One of eight original franchises, it wa ...

matchup. The game received a little over 1 million viewers. Average viewership for games broadcast on national television (ABC and ESPN2) was 413,000 (up from 346,000 in 2007). Average viewership for the 2007 WNBA finals was 545,000. Viewership for the

2011 WNBA All-Star Game The 2011 WNBA All-Star Game was played on July 23, 2011 (3:30pm EDT on ABC) at the AT&T Center in San Antonio, Texas, home of the San Antonio Silver Stars. The game was the 10th WNBA All-Star Game, which has been held annually since 1999 exce ...

on ABC was up 46% from the previous game. Game 1 of the

2015 WNBA Finals The 2015 WNBA Finals was the championship series for the 2015 WNBA season of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). On August 26, vegasinsider.com projected that the Minnesota Lynx has the highest odds to win the series (11/10). T ...

telecast on ABC, drew 571,000 viewers, up from 558,000 for Game 1 in 2014. Game 1 of the

2016 WNBA Finals The 2016 WNBA Finals, officially the WNBA Finals 2016 presented by Verizon for sponsorship reasons, was the best-of-five championship series for the 2016 WNBA season, 2016 season of the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA). The top-se ...

was broadcast on ABC and had 0.5 overnight rating (597,000 viewers), which was the best since 2010. The five game 2016 Finals broadcast on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 averaged a 0.3 rating and 487,000 viewers. Average viewership in 2016 was 224,000 viewers.

Announcers

Ryan Ruocco Ryan Ruocco (; born November 18, 1986) is an American television and radio sportscaster. He serves as a play-by-play announcer for the NBA, WNBA, and women's college basketball on ESPN, and the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Nets on YES Netwo ...

(lead play-by-play) * Pam Ward (play-by-play) *

Rebecca Lobo Rebecca Rose Lobo-Rushin (born October 6, 1973) is an American television basketball analyst and former professional women's basketball player in the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) from 1997 to 2003. Lobo, at 6'4", played the cent ...

(lead color commentary) *

LaChina Robinson LaChina Robinson is a basketball analyst who calls college basketball games for ESPN, Fox Sports 1,NBC Sports and FS South. She is also the analyst for the Atlanta Dream of the WNBA and calls select WNBA games for ESPN and NBATV. Early life Af ...

(color commentary) *

Holly Rowe Holly Rowe (born June 16, 1966) is an American sports telecaster for the ESPN sports television network, as a sideline reporter for college football and basketball games. Rowe made Utah Jazz history on October 22, 2021 as the team's first female ...

(sideline reporter) * Angel Gray (sideline reporter)

References

External links

*
Sports Media Watch
{{ESPN on ABC ABC Sports American Broadcasting Company original programming American English-language television shows 2003 American television series debuts 2000s American sports television series 2010s American sports television series 2020s American sports television series Women's National Basketball Association media