WNBA All-Star 2024: ESPN Readies for Competitive Showdown Between WNBA Stars, Team USA
VP, Production Sara Gaeiro: "We'll have our normal game hat on."
Story Highlights
The biggest WNBA season ever has reached its midway point and – prior to a month-long Olympic break – the league and its lead broadcast parter, ESPN, has descended upon Phoenix for All-Star Weekend.
On Friday, ESPN will televise the Skills Challenge and the 3-Point Contest at 9 p.m. ET while ABC will carry a special onsite edition of WNBA Countdown on Saturday at 8 p.m. ET followed by the All-Star Game from Footprint Center at 8:30 p.m. It’s the second consecutive year the All-Star Game has been broadcast in primetime.
Hype aside, this year’s All-Star Game features a uniquely poignant matchup as a team of WNBA All-Stars will face the U.S. Women’s Basketball Team set to head off to Paris for the Olympic Games, which begin next week. With all of the unique matchups between WNBA and Team USA stars, the prospect of super rookies Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese playing together for the first time, and the promise of mre eye balls than ever on the festivities, this is shaping up to be anything but your typical All-Star Game.
“We’ve taken an approach that is somewhat different from a traditional All-Star Game where this is going to be very competitive,” says Sara Gaiero, Vice President, Production at ESPN who oversees all women’s basketball – pro and college – for the network. “It’s not going to be sort of exhibition style in terms of what you normally expect when you tune in to watch the All-Star Game. We very much conversed about how best to document and deliver, knowing that it will be competitive, knowing we’ve got these really unique pairings and matchings that will just generate interest. I think that will just provide some really fun elements for people. I think it’s going to be very, very competitive. We’ll have our normal game hat on, if you will, as opposed to more of an entertainment hat.”
ESPN says that the camera complement on this event will rival that of the network’s efforts during the WNBA Finals. Additionally, the production and operations teams will continue to lean into access through audio, including mic’d up players and coaches and in-game interviews.
“Hopefully with some of the player mic opportunities that we have, we can gain some really cool insight into what it’s like to be on that team, what the teammates are saying to each other,” says Gaeiro. “I hope that can be a really fun piece that just humanizes these players a little bit, and we get a little bit behind the curtain during the game with that level of access that we have.”
The WNBA has been scorching hot through the first half of the season with ESPN setting numerous records, including the most-watched WNBA game on ABC ever (Indiana Fever vs. New York Liberty: 1.71 million on May 18), the most-watched WNBA game on ESPN networks ever (Indiana Fever vs. Connecticut Sun: 2.1 million on May 14), and the most-watched WNBA game across all networks in 23 years (Indiana Fever vs. Chicago Sky: 2.3 million on June 23).
“Going into the season, as with any season, the goal was to see an increase in viewership,” Matt Kenny, VP, Programming and Acquisitions at ESPN said to ESPN Front Row. “However, I’m not sure anyone could have expected the spikes we’ve seen this year. In addition, the fact that viewership has sustained throughout the season, smashing multiple records along the way, shows that this recent trend is not a novelty. Instead, it is evidence that this new audience is here to stay—and expand. One of the best aspects of ESPN is that the status quo is never an option. We will continue to collaborate across the company to celebrate, showcase and elevate the league, its players, rivalries and more. We have so much to be optimistic about, and in many ways, we are just getting started.”
Additionally, this game is a high-profile sendoff for the U.S. Women’s Basketball Team, which plays its first game at the Paris Olympics on June 29 against Japan. The US is shooting for its eight consecutive Gold Medal and haven’t lost an Olympic contest since 1992.
“It’s our opportunity to highlight what the Olympic team is going to prepare and get ready to go do in Paris,” says Gaiero. “We’ll take that opportunity to go tell some of the stories for that team composition and what they’ve got ahead. That’s a really unique opportunity for us, as well, as we hand it off to our NBC colleagues.”
