The WNBA Is On a Winning Streak. Is It Sustainable?
4/23/202646 min
Kara sits down with New York Liberty owner Clara Wu Tsai to talk about betting big on the WNBA and why the momentum for women’s sports isn’t slowing down. Clara explains why she saw the Liberty as a distressed asset worth rebuilding and how investments in players, facilities and visibility helped fuel a turnaround. She breaks down what’s driving the WNBA’s growth, from the Caitlin Clark effect to media deals, and why, despite surging popularity, the league is still undervalued. They also get into league expansion, the new collective bargaining agreement and the economics behind it all. Plus: Clara’s Human Performance Alliance and her push to close the data gap in women’s sports science. This episode was taped live at the CAA World Congress of Sports presented by Sports Business Journal. Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsKara Swisher· Host0:00
You don't like being talked about?
Clara Wu Tsai· Guest0:01
[laughs] Do you?
Kara Swisher· Host0:03
I don't care.
Clara Wu Tsai· Guest0:04
[laughs] I care- Yeah, I do ... I care less. I care less.
Kara Swisher· Host0:07
Yeah, I do. But I, like, troll them back, and I'm excellent at it.
Clara Wu Tsai· Guest0:10
Yeah.
Kara Swisher· Host0:10
And they lose every time, so. I'm not a sports person, but I'm very competitive.
Speaker 20:14
It's on.
Kara Swisher· Host0:15
[upbeat music] Hi, everyone. From New York Magazine and the Vox Media podcast network, this is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. My guest today is Clara Wu Tsai, owner of the WNBA's New York Liberty and the NBA's Brooklyn Nets. Clara and her husband, Alibaba co-founder Joe Tsai, purchased the Liberty in 2019 during a low point for the franchise. Its previous owner, James Dolan, had put the team up for sale in 2017 and moved it from Madison Square Garden to a small arena in Westchester County, New York. But Clara made a big bet on the New York Liberty and the WNBA. She moved the team to the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, invested in player facilities, fan experiences, and recruited top talent, which kicked off a major turnaround and coincided with a surge in popularity for the WNBA. And to cap it off, the Liberty won the league championship in 2024. In addition to turning the Liberty into a winning franchise, Clara's work across business and philanthropy led to the creation of the Wu Tsai Human Performance Alliance, a six-university research initiative that studies peak human