NEW YORK, September 5 — The WNBA has unveiled its 2026 regular season television schedule, and the numbers tell the story of a league whose media footprint has changed almost beyond recognition. This is the first season under the league’s new media rights deal, and the broadcast exposure is nearly unprecedented outside the NFL. A combined 40 games will air across the major broadcast networks — 20 on CBS, 13 on ABC, and seven on NBC, including the All-Star Game on ABC.
Add the Scripps-owned ION network, and the WNBA is scheduled for 74 national broadcast game windows before the playoffs even begin, likely the most of any league other than the NFL. For context, the NBA had 64 broadcast windows on NBC and ABC last season, including All-Star Weekend.
MLB is set for 48 on FOX, NBC, and ABC, including its All-Star Game. The NHL had 16 on ABC.
Primetime arrives
The 2026 schedule includes 11 primetime windows on major broadcast networks: eight Saturday night games on CBS, two “Sunday Night Basketball” games on NBC, and the All-Star Game on ABC. Historically, only five WNBA games had ever aired in primetime on a major broadcast network before this season — all in the prior three years, comprising three All-Star Games on ABC and two Saturday night Fever-Sky games on CBS in 2025.
CBS will air Saturday night games on six consecutive weeks from May 23 through June 27, plus two additional primetime contests on July 18 and August 15. Seven of those eight games will feature either the Caitlin Clark-led Indiana Fever, which appears four times, or the defending champion Las Vegas Aces, which appears three times.
The exception is the Dallas Wings-Chicago Sky game on June 20. NBC’s “Sunday Night Basketball” games are scheduled for July 12, when the Fever visit the Aces at 9 PM ET, and August 23, when the Fever visit the Sky at 7 PM ET. Both dates were chosen when NBC has no Sunday Night Baseball — the first falls during the MLB All-Star break, the second when ESPN carries the Little League Classic.
ABC’s only primetime game is the All-Star Game itself.
A schedule built around stars
All 44 Indiana Fever games are scheduled for national TV, a change from past seasons. The playoffs will have a smaller broadcast presence: NBC will air only Games 1 and 4 of the best-of-seven WNBA Finals, with the remaining five games on USA Network. Peacock will simulcast all Finals games.
Beyond broadcast, the league has 79 cable windows — 47 on USA Network, 17 on ESPN, and 15 on NBA TV — plus 47 direct-to-subscriber streaming windows, with 32 on Prime Video and 15 on Peacock, all of the latter simulcast on NBCSN. ESPN will air WNBA games on eight of nine Sunday nights from June 21 through August 16 under the “Women’s Sports Sundays” banner, typically at 7 or 8 PM ET.
In total, the WNBA is scheduled for 200 national windows, covering nearly two-thirds of the league’s 331 total games, including the Commissioner’s Cup final. Excluding NBA TV, the 185 national windows compare with just 12 in the 2012 season, when ESPN/ABC was the only national partner. The schedule reflects a league riding a wave of growing popularity — and a media rights deal that has finally put it on the same broadcast map as the major men’s leagues.
The question now is whether the audience follows.
