On June 27, 1996, NBC Sports was announced as the WNBA's first national broadcaster.[11] The WNBA soon also had television deals in place with theWalt Disney Company andHearst Corporation joint venture channels,ESPN andLifetime Television Network, respectively. At the time, NBC didn't pay television rights fees[12][13] to the league's teams. A morerock-oriented variant[14] ofJohn Tesh's theme, "Roundball Rock" introduced by NBC to coincide with the debut of the WNBA.
On July 23, 2024, NBC parent companyComcast confirmed in a conference call with its investors that NBC Sports had secured an agreement with the WNBA on an eleven-year media rights deal beginning in the 2026 season, marking the WNBA's return to NBC after a 24-year absence.[9] An official announcement of the agreement was released by the NBA and NBC the following day, alongside other deals with incumbents ABC/ESPN andAmazon.[28][29] The agreement was initially going to see games broadcast on NBC,USA Network and streaming onPeacock,[30][31] however in November 2024, Comcast announced that it would spin-off most of its cable networks, including USA Network, intoVersant, with the games only airing on NBC and Peacock. In September 2025, Versant also secured an eleven-year agreement with the WNBA to air fifty games on USA, alongside the NBCUniversal, Disney and Amazon deals.[32][33] NBC will also gain exclusive broadcast rights to seven WNBA semifinals series and three WNBA Finals series.[29]
NBC Sports' broadcast of the inaugural WNBA game between the Liberty and Sparks received a 3.8 overnight national rating.[34] This would also serve as NBC's highest rated WNBA game.[35] Although NBC's end-of-season average[36] for1999 was even with1998's average, viewership had actually increased from 1,540,000 households in 1998[37] to 1,607,000 in 1999. On the same token however, Nielsen ratings for NBC broadcasts of WNBA games slipped[38] from 2 million households reached in 1997—the WNBA's inaugural season—to 1.5 million in 1999.[39]
The averagerating for the first 9 of the 10[40] WNBA games NBC carried in the2001 season[41] was only 1.1, compared to a 2.0 rating its first season.[42]
The first WNBA season concluded with what was at the time, asingle championship game. The followingyear, the finale series into a best-of-three games series, with NBC airing the first two games andESPN airing the decisive third game. In1999, ESPN aired the first game of the championship series while NBC covered the following two. Come the year2000,Lifetime temporarily assumed ESPN's role as the WNBA's cable outlet for the WNBA Championship. Like the year prior, Lifetime broadcast the first game while NBC covered the second and ultimately decisive game between theHouston Comets andNew York Liberty. This marked Houston's fourth consecutive WNBA Championship.
ESPN returned to the fold in the year2001, broadcasting the first game with NBC airing the second and decisive game between theLos Angeles Sparks andCharlotte Sting. For NBC's final year of coverage in2002,ESPN2 this time, broadcast the first game with NBC again covering what would become the second and ultimately decisive game, which would be NBC's last WNBA telecast to date until 2026. NBC will gain exclusive broadcast rights to three WNBA Finals series in 2026, 2030, and 2034.[29]
