Short answers, pulled from the story.
The WNBA was officially approved by the NBA Board of Governors on the 24th of April, 1996, and league play began on the 21st of June, 1997. The first game was played at the Great Western Forum in Inglewood, California, where the New York Liberty defeated the Los Angeles Sparks 67-57 in front of 14,284 fans.
The Houston Comets won four consecutive championships from 1997 through 2000, the longest dynasty in WNBA history. Led by Cynthia Cooper, who won the Finals MVP all four times, Sheryl Swoopes, and Tina Thompson, the Comets posted a 98-24 record across those four seasons. The Minnesota Lynx later matched four titles, winning in 2011, 2013, 2015, and 2017.
On the 24th of March, 2026, the WNBA and its players' union finalized a seven-year CBA extending to 2032. For the first time, player salaries are directly linked to league revenue, with players receiving an average of 20 percent of total revenue. The salary cap rose from $1.5 million to $7 million, the average player salary reached $583,000, and the supermax contract was set at $1.4 million.
Diana Taurasi of the Phoenix Mercury holds the WNBA career scoring record with 10,646 points. She also holds the all-time record for three-pointers made with 1,447. Taurasi played from 2004 through 2024 with Phoenix, apart from the 2015 season.
The 2024 WNBA draft averaged 2.45 million viewers, more than four times the previous draft record. The 2024 All-Star Game averaged 3.44 million viewers, the largest audience since the league's opening weekend in 1997. A regular-season game between the Washington Mystics and the Indiana Fever set a record attendance of 20,711. In July 2024, the league announced an 11-year media deal worth $2.2 billion.
On the 9th of July, 2016, the four co-captains of the Minnesota Lynx held a press conference wearing shirts bearing the names of Philando Castile and Alton Sterling. In 2020, the league added Black Lives Matter and Say Her Name slogans to uniforms. Atlanta Dream players wore "VOTE WARNOCK" shirts opposing their own team owner's Senate campaign. The New York Times in 2020 called the WNBA "the most socially progressive pro league."