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      How Phoenix Fans Watch Their Teams May Change How You Watch Yours

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      Numerous franchises are expected to overhaul their local media deals, returning games to free networks. The transition is underway in Arizona.Days after Mat Ishbia reached a deal in December to buy majority stakes in the N.B.A.’s Phoenix Suns and the Phoenix Mercury of the W.N.B.A., he met with top executives to learn more about the teams’ business operations, including how local fans were able to watch their games on TV.The executives detailed three possibilities going forward, including sticking with Diamond Sports Group, which owned the regional sports network that for more than a decade had held the rights to show the teams’ games. Diamond Sports was saddled with $8 billion in debts — it would file for bankruptcy protection in March — but it still wrote big checks worth millions of dollars a year.Mr. Ishbia, though, gravitated to the riskiest of the three options: ditching the regional sports network model that most teams followed for decades and returning to showing Suns and Mercury games for free on over-the-air channels. It might cost the teams money in the short term, but the bet was that it would help them reach more fans, including those who dropped their cable subscriptions or, like many younger fans, never had one.“What was interesting was the amount of people that were reaching out to me on social media about how they couldn’t watch the Suns games,” Mr. Ishbia said in an interview, adding: “It’s their team. It’s not Mat’s team. To not be able to watch your game wasn’t an option that we were interested in.”In April, the organization announced that it would leave Diamond Sports and broadcast all Suns and Mercury games on over-the-air channels with the company Gray Television. They sent thousands of free antennas to fans who needed them. They also created a streaming option with the company Kiswe.Mr. Ishbia’s decision shook a sports media world — clubs, leagues, networks, cable and satellite providers — trying to navigate the decade-long shift in how fans watch their home teams. Those used to finding games on one channel are having to search for them elsewhere as networks and leagues reshuffle their distribution deals in response to the rise of cord cutting and the boom in streaming. Some clubs could face shortfalls as they search for ways to replace revenue lost by the end of local media deals, potentially hindering their ability to bid for top players.More teams are expected to overhaul their local media deals in the coming months as their contracts expire. Those that choose to show more of their games on free television are returning to a world that the N.F.L., which shows more than 90 percent of its games on over-the-air channels, never abandoned.“It’s back to the future,” said Michael Nathanson, a media analyst at MoffettNathanson. “As more people cut the cord, these teams are losing their ability to reach their fans. So why not put it over the air for free and also build a streaming product that’s more accessible for younger fans.”Bally Sports Arizona, the network that televised the games for Phoenix’s N.B.A., W.N.B.A., N.H.L. and Major League Baseball franchises, shut down last week.Christian Petersen/Getty ImagesAs the largest market going through this, Phoenix is ground zero for the rapid transition. In recent months, the Phoenix Coyotes of the N.H.L. and the Arizona Diamondbacks of Major League Baseball joined the Suns and the Mercury in overhauling their local media deals. On Friday, Bally Sports Arizona, the Diamond Sports network that carried all of those teams, shut down.The Phoenix-area franchises are part of a growing wave of teams doing the same. The San Diego Padres, like the Diamondbacks, ended their agreement with Diamond Sports, the largest regional sports network provider. Major League Baseball used its broadcasting and streaming capabilities to keep the teams on the air and guaranteed they would get 80 percent of the revenue they received in their Diamond Sports deals.Diamond Sports, which must make at least $400 million in annual debt payments, is in talks with its creditors, some of whom want to reshape the company’s business while others want to be bought out. Diamond Sports is also in talks with the N.B.A. and other leagues about reducing their rights fees.A company spokesperson declined to comment on the talks with creditors and the leagues.Last year, Monumental Sports Network, which is owned by Ted Leonsis, the owner of the Washington Wizards (N.B.A.), Capitals (N.H.L.) and Mystics (W.N.B.A.), bought NBC Sports Washington and unveiled a new streaming service. The N.H.L.’s Vegas Golden Knights said in May that they planned to shift to a free over-the-air channel. The N.B.A.’s Utah Jazz and Los Angeles Clippers are selling their games and programming directly to viewers with streaming packages, with the Jazz also broadcasting their games on a free channel.The Jazz are “probably the largest real media company in the state,” Ryan Smith, the team’s owner, said in an interview this year. “If you actually think about the N.B.A., we’re not that different than a media or tech company.”Mr. Smith said he expected most teams to take over their broadcasts entirely within three years.Major League Baseball and the N.B.A. have been preparing for this possibility for years. When Sinclair, Diamond’s parent company, bought the regional sports networks from Fox Sports in 2019, M.L.B. made a bid because it wanted to control as much of its content as possible, Commissioner Rob Manfred said.“That was a product of our belief the media was going to change dramatically,” he said, noting that 11 major league teams still have contracts with Diamond Sports.Local media deals have traditionally been handled by the clubs, but in January, M.L.B. hired executives from regional sports networks to develop contingency plans, like taking back the rights to Padres and Diamondbacks games and showing them on MLB.TV’s subscription service, as well as an array of cable and satellite companies. The broadcasts included the same announcers.While deals with regional sports networks bring in dependable checks for teams, cord cutting has led to shrinking viewership.Kevin D. Liles/Atlanta Braves, via Getty ImagesJason and Wendy Dow, who live in Queen Creek, south of Phoenix, canceled their cable package with Cox this summer to save money and signed up for YouTube TV. Now they watch the Diamondbacks using the MLB app, which they said had better streaming functions.“I was kind of upset at first, but it’s turned out to be better in the end,” Jason Dow said at a recent Diamondbacks home game. “On the old feed, you basically just saw the game without a lot of extras.”The N.B.A. began preparing for changes in 2018, creating a “next gen” service that includes a streaming service and production and distribution support that teams can use to stream broadcasts. So far, the Clippers, the Jazz and the Suns are using it.Diamond’s bankruptcy doesn’t affect every team. Franchises like the New York Knicks, the Denver Nuggets and the Wizards in the N.B.A. and the New York Yankees and the Boston Red Sox in baseball own their networks. Other teams are locked into long-term deals, like the Los Angeles Dodgers, who signed a 25-year, $8.35 billion deal with Time Warner Cable in 2013 and have part ownership of their regional sports network.While the deals bring in dependable checks, some teams are reaching a shrinking viewership because of cord cutting. For others, like the Nuggets and the Dodgers, disputes with carriers like DirecTV and Comcast meant their games weren’t available to most people in their markets for part of their contracts.The Suns first had games on cable television in 1981, and started broadcasting games on Fox Sports, which later became Bally Sports, in 2003.“​At the time it seemed pretty good, pretty solid,” said Jerry Colangelo, who was with the Suns as an executive and then an owner from 1968 until 2004. “And they had some strong years of growth, for sure.”Instead of outsourcing the production and ad sales to the networks, the Suns produced their own content “to control our own destiny,” Mr. Colangelo said.The Suns continued to produce their own games and sell their own ads after Mr. Colangelo sold the team. That gave them and the Mercury a head start when Mr. Ishbia decided to change course. Most other teams will have to create those resources if they cut ties with regional sports networks.The early results have been positive. Viewership for Mercury games jumped 418 percent last season, said Josh Bartelstein, chief executive of the Suns and the Mercury. Mr. Ishbia said getting fans hooked on the Suns and the Mercury was the goal. He has made big (and expensive) moves since buying the team, trading for the highly paid stars Kevin Durant and Bradley Beal, and investing more than $100 million in a new practice facility for the Mercury and a new headquarters for both teams.“I’m not focused on money,” Mr. Ishbia said. “We’re focused on success. We’re focused on fan experience. And money always follows those things.”He added: “I think other teams will follow whether they have to or whether they want to. I think this is the future.” More

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      Joan Jett Loves the New York Liberty. The Feeling Is Mutual.

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      As an early fan of the W.N.B.A. team, the musician saw the squad lose four championship series. This week, she returned courtside to cheer another attempt.Joan Jett’s unmistakable voice was carrying, and she was pretty sure it was working some magic.The New York Liberty had taken a slim lead against the Las Vegas Aces in the third quarter of Game 3 of the W.N.B.A. finals on Sunday, and the Rock & Roll Hall of Famer was doing her part, bellowing along with the crowd’s “De-fense” chant from her courtside perch at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. When the Aces started to go cold, Jett took it as a sign.“I’m hoping they recognize my voice and I’m messing up their shot,” the husky-throated musician said, using an expletive. “It’s all mental, you know what I’m saying?”It was a must-win contest for the Liberty, who were down 2-0 in the best-of-five series. As Jett kept up her boisterous chant, the Aces missed six consecutive shots. The Liberty went on an 8-0 run, and the diminutive singer and guitarist jumped up to high-five the 6-foot-3 former Liberty center Sue Wicks, a friend.Some 10 years had passed since Jett last attended a W.N.B.A. game (her summer touring schedule got in the way), but she fell quickly back into the playoff delirium she had enjoyed as a courtside fixture in the late 1990s and early ’00s, when the team made the final round of the playoffs four times but failed to win a title.The rock star said she first fell for the game in 1996 when the N.C.A.A. asked her permission to use Joan Jett and the Blackhearts’ cover of “Love Is All Around” to promote the women’s basketball tournament. The following year, the W.N.B.A. began its first season and Jett bought Liberty season tickets, often showing up to big games with a red cloth voodoo doll she used to taunt opposing players.“She’d hold it up and stab that dang thing!” Teresa Weatherspoon, the former Liberty guard, said during halftime. “When you talk about the Liberty, you have to mention Joan’s name. Any battle we had on the floor, Joan was in it with us.”Jett grew up a self-described tomboy in Rockville, Md., and became a fan of Major League Baseball’s Baltimore Orioles at age 11, after her father took her to see the pitcher Jim Palmer throw a no-hitter. Her intersection with sports continues today: She still follows the Orioles faithfully, and is known to set up livestreams on the drum riser during shows so she can follow along. The theme song for “Sunday Night Football,” is an adapted version of the Blackhearts hit “I Hate Myself for Loving You,” performed by Carrie Underwood.During her early days of W.N.B.A. fandom, Jett opted to sit directly behind the bench instead of courtside with the other celebrities. (“It just feels more inside basketball to me,” Jett said. “You can hear the coaches talking.”) The Liberty would slap her hand on their way onto the floor. Jett occasionally came to practices, and once even flew to Houston with the team for a finals game.Jett developed particularly close friendships with Weatherspoon and Wicks, who remembers being so star-struck the first time she saw Jett at Madison Square Garden, where the Liberty initially played, that she almost knocked over Rebecca Lobo, the team’s center. Wicks had a copy of “The Hit List,” Jett’s 1990 album, while playing overseas in Europe, and said it had been a “great friend” to her during lonely stretches abroad. “For me, she’s a goddess,” Wicks said.In 1999, Ray Castoldi, the Garden’s organist, asked Jett and the Blackhearts to record “Unfinished Business,” a song he had written for the Liberty after their crushing finals loss that year. Jett not only cut the track the following season, but filmed a video with the team and performed the song at halftime during a game.“It’s hard to explain the energy,” Jett said of those early years. “I was on the outside looking in, but they made me feel like I was on the inside. It was a fun, really inclusive time.”Jett feels a natural kinship with athletes, who, like longtime touring bands, travel with a tight-knit team and are expected to perform on command. And like the athletes in the W.N.B.A., who have carved out a professional place for themselves while expanding the public’s idea of what women are capable of doing, Jett broke down boundaries in music: battling to prove to record labels and crowds that she deserved to be a frontwoman despite her prodigious talent. “We’re people that could relate to what each other was doing,” she said.Crystal Robinson, a former Liberty forward with whom Jett remains close, said the recognition was mutual: “For us, it was just the fact that she supported us,” she said. “She was fighting that female battle before we started. We had this camaraderie.”Jett’s return to the Liberty on Sunday was an overdue homecoming. Before the game, she nursed a beer as she held court with Wicks and Robinson at a table in the Barclays’ V.I.P. lounge. The recently retired W.N.B.A. star Sue Bird came by to pay her respects, as did the actors Jason Sudeikis and Michael Shannon, who portrayed Kim Fowley, the manager of Jett’s band, the Runaways, in a 2010 film.As the restaurant emptied before game time, Jett got restless. “I feel like we’re missing stuff!” she said giddily, before heading toward the court to find her seat. Just before tipoff, Becky Hammon, the Aces head coach who had been a Liberty guard in her playing days, spotted Jett taking a photo of her from across the court and struck a quick pose.Once the game started, Jett was up out of her seat to cheer on nearly every Liberty point. She gleefully taunted Hammon after a Jonquel Jones bucket (“Three-pointer, Becky!”), and debated foul calls with Wicks and Robinson. When Jones blocked a shot from the Aces star A’ja Wilson in the third quarter, Jett removed her black jean jacket to cheers from the crowd. “It’s hot in here!” she shouted back.After the Aces went cold in the third quarter, the Liberty stretched their lead. “I feel good,” Jett said. “But they’ve broken my heart before.”She appeared on the Jumbotron soon after, gamely swinging a Liberty towel overhead as “I Love Rock ’n Roll” blared on the public address system. Then, she fired T-shirts into the crowd with an air cannon, with the crowd roaring for her.“I felt the love,” Jett said. But she was mainly focused on her potential as a tactical influence: “It reminds Las Vegas that I’m here, and that can make them nervous.”She needn’t have worried. The Liberty found their rhythm in the second half and defeated the Aces, 87-73, extending the series to a Game 4, which will be played in Brooklyn on Wednesday. Should the team force a Game 5, it will play for the franchise’s elusive, first-ever title.“You’ve got to be back Wednesday!” a fan told Jett as the clock wound down. “You’re clearly the good luck charm.”But Jett is prepared for any outcome. “That’s the nature of being a sports fan,” she said. “To be there through the tough times and the good times.” More

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      How Coco Gauff Embodies the Biggest Story in Sports

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      As our Sports of The Times columnist moves to a new assignment, he reflects on a recurring theme from his tenure: the rise of female athletes.What perfect timing.That thought flashed through my mind as I sat courtside at Arthur Ashe Stadium last week, watching Coco Gauff poleax the backhand passing shot that sealed the U.S. Open and her first Grand Slam title.My thoughts were as much about the in-sync way Gauff struck that last ball as how the moment had lined up for this column.Gauff — a sensation now at 19, much as Venus and Serena Williams were at the same age — stepped closer to her destiny. With a major championship in hand, she is ready to be a leader on the women’s tennis tour and one of the guardians of the new era of female empowerment in sports.Her beginning provided a perfect ending for me. The Open was the last event I will cover as the Sports of The Times columnist. I’m moving to our National desk, where I’ll write feature stories about America’s wonder, complexity, trouble and promise.How perfect that the U.S. Open helped lower the curtain, with a women’s sport providing the tournament’s apex moment: Gauff’s three-set win over Aryna Sabalenka overshadowed an anticlimactic men’s final in which Novak Djokovic took his 24th major title with a straight-sets win over Daniil Medvedev. For me, women have been the story, and not just at the U.S. Open.Doak Campbell Stadium at Florida State University in May 2020, during the height of the pandemic.Joshua King for The New York TimesI took on this column in the late summer of 2020. The worst days of the pandemic can seem a hazy memory now, stuck in the back of our collective consciousness, as painful moments often are. Much of the sports world was shuttered and scrambling to figure out ways to get back to competition amid the loss of so many lives. Who knew when the rampaging virus would be tamed?At the same time, the ever-present inheritance of racism roiled the nation after the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor — both at the hands of police — and the brutal killing of a jogger, Ahmaud Arbery, by white racists.Remember the athletes — famous professionals and little-known amateurs in the United States and globally — and how they spoke out and led.And remember that Donald Trump was president then, spewing barbs at them, particularly at Black athletes who raised their voices or protested by having the temerity to kneel, exercising their right of peaceful protest during the playing of the national anthem.I wrote about all this and much more, and I tried to do so in a way that showed I was not interested in the kind of shouting matches that pervade much of sports journalism. I aimed to write thoughtfully about how sports and athletes intersect with the social issues that stir and vex our culture. I sought to be a strong voice in this space, and to add to the mix a good pinch of storytelling and the occasional piece spiced with a little cheeky fun. More than anything, I sought to live out the most tried-and-true of journalistic credos: comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable — or, in my parlance, fight for the outsiders and the outliers, the unseen and the overlooked.Which brings me back to a subject I considered often here, one embodied by Gauff hitting that backhand passing shot and walking off with a Grand Slam title and a winner’s check for $3 million: the rise of women in sports.Think of all we have witnessed in this arena over the last three years.Think of the W.N.B.A., the league’s leading role in the protests of 2020, and its continued strength as an amalgamation of women who are not afraid to challenge the status quo.Think of the winning fight by the U.S. women’s national soccer team for equal pay, or how female soccer players across the globe and in the N.W.S.L. stood up against harassing, abusive coaches.A women’s volleyball match drew more than 92,000 people to Memorial Stadium at the University of Nebraska earlier this month.Terry Ratzlaff for The New York TimesDid you see that volleyball game at the University of Nebraska, with 92,000 fans in the stands? Or all those record-breaking, packed-to-the-gills stadiums at the Women’s World Cup, with 75,000 on hand for the recent final in Australia?Yep, it’s a new era.Consider March Madness 2023. This was a year when the men’s event sat in the shadow of the women’s side — with its upsets, tension and quality. With the charismatic Angel Reese leading L.S.U. over Iowa for the national title. With Reese, bold and Black, sparking a conversation on race by taunting her white opponent, Caitlin Clark, the sharpshooting player of the year.Yes, on the court, track, field or wherever they compete, women can be as challenging, ornery, competitive and controversial as men. That needs to be celebrated.Where will this end? With a few exceptions, tennis being one, it’s hard to imagine women’s sports getting the kind of attention they deserve any time soon.Who gets the most money, notice and hosannas in youth sports? By and large, boys.Who runs most teams and controls most media that broadcast and write about the games? By and large, men.Who runs the companies that provide the sponsorship money? Yeah, primarily men.Change is coming. But change will take more time. Maybe a few generations more.The decks remain stacked in favor of guys, but women continue their fight. When it comes to the games we play and love to watch, that’s the biggest story in sports right now.A drawing of Billie Jean King at the U.S. Open earlier this month. Karsten Moran for The New York TimesHow perfect that this year’s U.S. Open would frame that story once again. Flushing Meadows was a two-week gala celebration of the 50th anniversary of Billie Jean King’s successful push for equal prize money at the event — a landmark in sports that still stands out for its boldness.And how fitting that on this golden anniversary — with Serena Williams now retired, with Billie Jean front and center during tributes all tournament long — Gauff would win her first Grand Slam event and do it by flashing the kind of poise that marks her as an heir to the throne.Thank you, Coco and Serena. Thank you, Billie Jean, and all the other female and male athletes who have gone against the status quo, emerged victorious, and are still in the fight.And thank you for following along as I’ve tried to stand for the outsiders and make sense of it all. More

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      The Liberty’s Game 1 WNBA Playoff Win Against the Mystics, in Photos

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      Liberty fans have waited 27 seasons for a W.N.B.A. title, and on Friday night, it showed. The atmosphere at Barclays Center was electric for New York’s opening postseason game against the Washington Mystics.Fans waved white playoff towels, booed every call that didn’t go their way and cheered for each celebrity featured on the scoreboard, including Malala Yousafzai, a Nobel Peace Prize winner; the tennis great Billie Jean King; and Teresa Weatherspoon, the former Liberty star. Members of the team’s N.B.A. counterparts, the Brooklyn Nets, were also in attendance.Those fans were rewarded with a Liberty win, 90-75, behind 29 points from Sabrina Ionescu and 20 from Jonquel Jones. The game started as a tense back-and-forth affair, but the Liberty took a narrow lead into halftime, and they never relinquished it. Ionescu set a postseason franchise record with seven 3-pointers in the game.After the Liberty wrapped up the regular season with a 32-8 record, expectations were high that they could take the championship. They are seeded second in the playoffs, with the Las Vegas Aces seeded first.A win on Tuesday in Brooklyn, in Game 2 of this best-of-three series against the Mystics, would send the Liberty to the semifinals — and get them one step closer to that elusive title.Fans lined up at Barclays Center.Amir Hamja/The New York TimesA D.J. worked the crowd outside before the game.Amir Hamja/The New York TimesAmir Hamja/The New York TimesAmir Hamja/The New York TimesThe Liberty’s Betnijah Laney kept the team afloat in the first half.Monique Jaques for The New York TimesAmir Hamja/The New York TimesJonquel Jones shooting against the Mystics defense.Monique Jaques for The New York TimesThe Liberty gave the fans more to celebrate as they pulled away in the second half.Monique Jaques for The New York TimesThe Timeless Torches dance group performed between quarters.Monique Jaques for The New York TimesMonique Jaques for The New York TimesMalala Yousafzai and Billie Jean King were on hand for the game.Monique Jaques for The New York TimesAmir Hamja/The New York Times More

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      WNBA Playoff Preview: The Aces and Liberty Are On a Collision Course

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      The Aces and the Liberty towered above the competition this season. Will they meet in the finals?Two superteams, the Las Vegas Aces and the New York Liberty, dominated the W.N.B.A. season, as expected. They were so good that only two others teams in the 12-team league even managed a winning record.A final between them has the potential to be a classic. But first, they will have to make it through the six other teams in the W.N.B.A. playoffs.When do the playoffs start?The first game of the best-of-three quarterfinals, Minnesota at Connecticut, is on Wednesday at 8 p.m. Eastern, with Chicago at Las Vegas following at 10 p.m. The Washington-New York and Atlanta-Dallas series will start on Friday.The best-of-five semifinals are scheduled from Sept. 24 to Oct. 3, and the finals will start Oct. 8 and run through Oct. 20, if all five games are necessary.What do the first-round matchups look like?The big two teams, the Aces (34-6 in the regular season) and the Liberty (32-8), are prohibitive favorites over the Chicago Sky and the Washington Mystics, though the Mystics have their former M.V.P., Elena Delle Donne, back from injury, and the Sky have a history of deep playoff runs after subpar regular seasons.The league’s third-best team has clearly been the Connecticut Sun (27-13), which would be expected to beat the Minnesota Lynx. In the final series, the Dallas Wings were three games better than the Atlanta Dream in the regular season and have home-court advantage, so should be the favorite.Who’s going to win it all?The Aces or the Liberty, the Liberty or the Aces? That’s been the question all season.The Aces are the reigning champions, and they have been even better this year. The Liberty managed to land Jonquel Jones, Breanna Stewart and Courtney Vandersloot in the off-season to soar from an average team to greatness.The teams split their four regular-season league meetings, but the Liberty won a fifth game, the final of the new Commissioner’s Cup. The betting odds favor the Aces, but, in truth, it looks too close to call.Could the Sun spoil the party? A 1-6 record against the top two teams doesn’t bode well. The other five teams in the playoffs would need a run of form not seen all season to win the title.How can I watch the games?ABC and the ESPN channels will be telecasting the games.What’s this I hear about flights?Unlike in the N.B.A., travel in the W.N.B.A. is mostly commercial, which has been a point of contention between the players and the league. This year, the league announced that, for the playoffs at least, teams would fly charter.But there are limits, sources have reported: Charter flights would be allowed only once between series, allowing a team, for example, to fly home from a series by charter but not onward to the next series.Who are the players to watch?Just about every Ace who steps on the court. The star forward and reigning M.V.P. A’ja Wilson (22.8 points, 9.5 rebounds and 2.2 blocks a game, and a record-tying 53-point game) is complemented by the sharpshooting guard trio of Kelsey Plum, Jackie Young and Chelsea Gray (seven assists per game).A longer W.N.B.A. season this year allowed Stewart to break the league record for points scored, though Jewell Loyd of Seattle broke her record a few days later. In addition to Jones and Vandersloot, the Liberty have Sabrina Ionescu, the top 3-point shooter in the league.The Sun are led by the versatile forward Alyssa Thomas, who led the league in rebounds, and nearly in assists. And she recorded six triple-doubles this season, a league record.What teams and players are missing?Candace Parker joined the Aces as a splashy off-season signing, but the two-time M.V.P. has been sidelined indefinitely with a fractured foot. She played the first half of the season but has been out since early July.It would have been fun to see the No. 1 draft pick and probable rookie of the year Aliyah Boston in action, but her Indiana Fever did not make the playoffs.After 10 straight seasons in the playoffs, the Phoenix Mercury finished last and did not qualify. That means no playoffs for Brittney Griner, who rejoined the league after spending 10 months in Russian prison on drug charges. Remarkably, she returned to make the All-Star team and average 17.5 points a game, just about her career average. More

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      Breanna Stewart Sets W.N.B.A. Points Record

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      She has scored more points this season than anyone else in W.N.B.A. history, but had more games to do it.Breanna Stewart of the Liberty has now scored more points than any other player in a single season in W.N.B.A. history. But is she really the league’s best scorer ever? It depends on how you look at it.Stewart scored 40 points in a 94-93 victory at the Dallas Wings on Tuesday night. That took her to 885 points for a season, more than any other W.N.B.A. player in history.But she has benefited from the new 40-game schedule, which was introduced this season. For most of its history, the league played 34 games.Diana Taurasi, whose record Stewart broke, scored 860 points in 2006, the third season in her long career with the Phoenix Mercury. But she did it in 34 games, for a scoring average of 25.3 points per game. Stewart took 38 games to reach her total, giving her a 23.3-per-game average.For Stewart to match Taurasi’s scoring average record, assuming she plays both of the remaining games on the Liberty’s schedule, she would need to average more than 60 points a game, a feat beyond even her skills, one would think.“I have this back-and-forth feeling with the scoring record, because any time I’m in the same limelight as D, it’s amazing, just because of what she’s done in her career and what she continues to do,” Stewart said after the game.“But obviously, it’s more games. More games is more points. As we have 40-game seasons, and we continue to build off that, there’s going to be a lot of records that are broken.”Stewart is not the only one racking up the points this season. Jewell Loyd of the Seattle Storm has 852 with three games to play. A’ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces has 846 with two games to play. Both should also sail past Taurasi’s mark, and there is no guarantee Stewart will even hold the record by season’s end.Longer season or not, it has been a boom year for individual scoring in the W.N.B.A. Stewart’s game on Tuesday was the 13th time this season a player had scored 40 or more points; last season, nobody did it. Wilson had a 53-point game last month, tying the league’s single-game scoring record.Alyssa Thomas of the Connecticut Sun has also been taking advantage of the longer schedule. On Tuesday night, she broke the single-season assist record with 304, topping Courtney Vandersloot’s 300 for the Chicago Sky in 2019. Thomas also has 375 rebounds, fourth on the single-season list with two games to play.It’s all a bit reminiscent of Roger Maris’s home run chase in 1961. As Maris approached Babe Ruth’s record of 60 home runs in a season, Ford Frick, who was the baseball commissioner, suggested Maris’s record could receive a “distinctive mark” in the record book, unless Maris reached 60 in 154 games, the traditional length of a season. The American League had lengthened its season to 162 games in 1961.Maris had 59 homers at the 154-game mark, and hit his 61st, breaking Ruth’s record, in the Yankees’ final regular-season game. As a result, many fans thought of Maris’s record as having an asterisk, although one was never actually applied officially.Stewart’s record is the latest accomplishment in a glittering basketball career. A 6-foot-4 forward, she won four national championships in four years at UConn and was the N.C.A.A. tournament’s most outstanding player each year. She had two titles in her six seasons with Seattle, won the league M.V.P. in 2018, and may do so again this season after signing with the Liberty as a free agent. She also has two Olympic gold medals.Stewart benefited from the longer schedule. But points do not score themselves. And for now, she has more of them in a W.N.B.A. season than anyone else. More

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      A’ja Wilson’s 53-Point Game Ties the W.N.B.A. Record

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      Wilson, of the Las Vegas Aces, became just the third W.N.B.A. player to score at least 50 in a game.Fifty-point games in the N.B.A. can almost be ho-hum: There were 25 last season alone, and they are increasing in frequency. But in the W.N.B.A., they are nearly unheard-of.A’ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces didn’t just score 50 on Tuesday night in Atlanta; she made four free throws in the last minute to reach 53, tying the league record.Wilson’s is just the third 50-point game in W.N.B.A. history, following a 53-point game by Liz Cambage of the Dallas Wings in 2018 and a 51-point game by Riquna Williams of the Tulsa Shock in 2013.There have been only 33 games in which a player has scored 40 points or more in the league’s history, which dates to 1997. But as in the N.B.A., the trend line is upward. A third of those games have come this season.After her heroic individual effort, Wilson chose to spread the credit. “I didn’t do this alone,” she said. “My teammates get all the glory because without them I don’t even get the basketball.” Chelsea Gray had 12 assists, and Kelsey Plum had seven for the Aces.Wilson, a 6-foot-4 forward, shot 16 for 23 from the floor with one 3-pointer and made 20 of 21 free throws. Defensively, she found time to record a game-high four blocks. The Aces defeated the host Atlanta Dream, 112-100.When it comes to putting up high-scoring totals, N.B.A. players have the distinct advantage of playing 48-minute games, rather than the 40-minute games of the W.N.B.A.N.B.A. teams also score more efficiently, averaging 114.8 points per 100 possessions last season, compared with 103.8 in the W.N.B.A. this season. (Or looking at it another way, W.N.B.A. players are more efficient defensively.) And N.B.A. teams also play at a slightly faster pace, averaging 2.06 possessions per minute compared with 1.98 in the W.N.B.A.That all adds up to higher scoring games: 114.7 points per team in the N.B.A. versus 82.5 in the W.N.B.A. in the most recent seasons.Looking at it that way, Wilson’s 53 points amounted to 64 percent of an average W.N.B.A. team’s point total. The equivalent percentage in the N.B.A. would be a 73-point game, something that has happened only six times in N.B.A. history and only once in the years since the W.N.B.A. was founded.The game was an outlier even for Wilson, a two-time league M.V.P. and an Olympic gold medalist in Tokyo. Her previous career high, 11 days before, was 40 points, and she has only 10 games of 30 points or more in her six-year career.Wilson also has the advantage of playing for the Aces, the league’s best team, with a gaudy 29-4 record, and the defending league champions. If they could win all of their remaining seven games, their 36-4 mark and .900 winning percentage would match the record set by the 1998 Houston Comets, who were 27-3 in a shorter season. More

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      Once Rare, 40-Point Games Are Surging in the W.N.B.A.

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      Breanna Stewart of the Liberty scored 42 on Sunday for her third 40-point game of the season, and the 10th in the league this year.The 40-point game had disappeared from the W.N.B.A. over the past several years. This season, it has made a comeback.Ten times this year a player has scored at least 40 points in a game, by far the most in a single season in the league’s 27-year history. Before this year, there had been no such regular-season showings since 2018, when the star center Liz Cambage had two. And with at least nine games left for every team, as the W.N.B.A. stages its longest regular season ever, there is still time for more scoring outbursts.“You see a lot of 40-point games this year, and I think that we’re just continuing to get eyes on women’s basketball,” Breanna Stewart, the star Liberty forward, said Sunday in a television interview after notching the league’s most recent 40-point game in a 100-89 victory over the Indiana Fever.Stewart scored 30 of her 42 points in the first half on the way to her third 40-point game in 2023, becoming the first player in W.N.B.A. history with three in a regular season. (In 2015, Elena Delle Donne recorded two 40-point games in the regular season and one in the postseason for the Chicago Sky.)True to her versatile style of play, Stewart scored on Sunday in myriad ways: backing down the smaller Kristy Wallace and finishing with a left-handed layup; making a turnaround fadeaway over Lexie Hull from the baseline; knocking down a long 3-pointer after trailing the play.Though she had not scored 40 points in a regular-season game until this year, Stewart had shown she was capable. She had 42 points, tying a postseason record, in her final game with the Seattle Storm, and that kind of output has continued in her first season with New York.In May, in her first home game with the Liberty, she scored a career-high 45 points against the Fever, who are very likely grateful that New York is no longer on their regular-season schedule. She also dropped 43 points in a win over the Phoenix Mercury in July.Stewart’s outing Sunday came only two days after Las Vegas Aces center A’ja Wilson had her first career 40-point game, shooting 17 of 25 in a blowout win over Washington. Wilson and Stewart, past Most Valuable Player Award winners, are both in the top five in points and rebounds per game this year and are among the leading contenders for another M.V.P.“I don’t know, there’s something in the water,” Stewart said when asked if there was a “40-point rivalry” developing.A’ja Wilson and Las Vegas have a three-game lead on Stewart’s Liberty for the W.N.B.A.’s best record. John Locher/Associated PressTheir teams are atop the league standings, too. The reigning champion Aces (27-3) are within striking distance of the 1998 Houston Comets’ record for best single-season winning percentage, and the Liberty (24-6) are off to their best start in franchise history as they look to win their first title. The teams have split their two games, including a romp by the Liberty earlier this month, but they play three more times in August, including on Tuesday and Thursday.The Liberty made a splash by signing top players this off-season, but the Aces have elite talent, too, and one of those players, the two-time All-Star Kelsey Plum, has also recorded a 40-point game this season. While the sharpshooting Plum made six 3-pointers as part of her performance against the Minnesota Lynx in July, the 6-foot-4 Wilson racked up her points by overpowering defenders, maneuvering in the post and swishing midrange jumpers.Like Wilson, Plum had never scored 40 points in a regular-season game until 2023. Neither had Rhyne Howard of Atlanta, Jewell Loyd of Seattle, Arike Ogunbowale of Dallas or DeWanna Bonner of Connecticut.But one player who did it this year had.On Aug. 3 against the Atlanta Dream, Phoenix guard Diana Taurasi needed 18 points to become the first player in W.N.B.A. history to score 10,000 in a career. She reached the milestone with a deep 3-pointer over Howard in the third quarter, and she finished with 42 points — her first 40-point game since 2010 and the fourth of her career.“Tomorrow I’ll feel like I’m 50,” the 41-year-old Taurasi said in a postgame news conference.She added later: “I came here a little bit nervous. I didn’t want to disappoint anyone. I just wanted to get it over with for a sense of relief, but at the same time I was just focused on trying to win a game.”Though the 40-point game has had a renaissance in the W.N.B.A., much like the triple-double did last season, the 50-point game remains exceedingly rare. There have been only two: Cambage’s 53 in 2018 and Riquna Williams’s 51 in 2013. Only three other players — Taurasi, Lauren Jackson and Maya Moore — have come within 3 points of it.But if this season shows anything, there are plenty of candidates to get there again. More