After three decades of existence, the WNBA finds itself in a precarious position as team owners and the players’ union battle over a new collective bargaining agreement. Coming off two seasons that set attendance and TV ratings records, athletes want a larger share of the league’s growing revenue, among other demands. Owners, naturally, want to keep costs down as the league heads into its 30th season with a rosier business outlook than it has ever had.

If the two sides can come to an agreement and preserve the momentum, they will have a long line of investors hoping to pour money into the league.

That enthusiasm helps explain why, despite the threat of a work stoppage, the WNBA is boxing out other women’s sports. On Forbes’ inaugural list of the world’s most valuable women’s teams, the top five all come from the league—led by the $400 million New York Liberty—with all 12 WNBA franchises valued by Forbes ranking among the top 25.

The rest of the 2025 list features eight National Women’s Soccer League franchises, as well as five European soccer clubs: three from England’s Women's Super League and two from Spain’s Liga F. All 25 ranked franchises are worth nine figures, with an average of $224 million and the NWSL’s Seattle Reign FC setting the cutoff at $105 million, according to Forbes estimates.

Combined, the 25 teams are valued at $5.6 billion—a far cry from a few years ago, when women’s franchises were sometimes thrown in as freebies in sales of men’s teams under the same ownership. Before Michele Kang took control of the Washington Spirit in 2022 at a $35 million valuation, for example, NWSL clubs traded for less than $5 million. Now, the Spirit rank 20th among women’s sports teams at an estimated $130 million. The WNBA’s Las Vegas Aces, meanwhile, have seen an even more dramatic rise, going from a $2 million price tag in their 2021 purchase by billionaire Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis to a $310 million valuation today, No. 4 among women’s teams.

In those intervening years, the NWSL has added blue-chip sponsors including AT&T and Google, and the Kansas City Current have demonstrated the

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