Fandoms of the Year: 5 big things to watch in women’s basketball in 2025

From March Madness to the Olympics and a historic WNBA season, women's basketball hit dramatic new heights in 2024 — for viewership, fan interest and on-court excitement. That's why Women's Basketball was chosen as FanSided's 2024 Sports Fandom of the Year. Check out all our 2024 Fandoms of the Year here, and look ahead to what women's basketball has in store for fans in 2025.

The launch of Unrivaled Women's Basketball

A new basketball league is coming in 2025. WNBA stars Breanna Stewart and Napheesa Collier have founded the Unrivaled 3x3 basketball league, launching Jan. 17 in Miami, Florida. The league, which will play on a condensed full-court, features 36 WNBA players on six teams.

Unrivaled was founded as a potential alternative to playing in overseas leagues during the WNBA offseason, allowing players to stay in the United States. Until fairly recently, a majority of WNBA players would leave immediately after the WNBA season to play in leagues in Europe, China, Australia and other locations. They would return either just before the WNBA season, and some would even have to miss WNBA training camp and the beginning of the season.

In the most recent WNBA CBA, the league created a "prioritization" rule, punishing players who were late for the WNBA season due to overseas play with a season-long suspension. This forced players to start deciding between playing overseas or in the WNBA. The kicker was that these overseas leagues pay more than the average WNBA salary, the reason many players went in the first place.

The motivation behind Unrivaled was to allow players to competitively prepare for the WNBA season, avoid the prioritization problem and still make money. Unrivaled boasts the highest average player salary in US women's professional sports and gives players equity in the league.

On top of the positive implications for these players, this new league also means more exciting basketball for fans to watch in 2025. TNT Sports will be the broadcaster for Unrivaled and games will be featured three nights per week from January to March.

The 2025 WNBA Draft

The 2024 WNBA season was defined by a stellar class of rookie talent that immediately started breaking records.

If you think that was it for young women's basketball talent, though ... get ready for the class of 2025. A whole new crop of generational talent will be entering the WNBA this season. Some names eligible for the 2025 draft include Azzi Fudd, Georgia Amoore, Olivia Miles, Kiki Iriafen, Lauren Betts and, of course, Paige Bueckers. The No.1 high school recruit from the class of 2020 is currently playing her fifth season at the University of Connecticut, using extra years of eligibility after missing time with injury throughout her college career.

Now recovered and playing her redshirt senior season, Bueckers is one of the best women's basketball players to ever play. She won both Freshman of the Year and Player of the Year in 2021 and has the talent and basketball player of someone with much more experience than Bueckers currently has. She is currently the prospective No. 1 overall draft pick for 2025, a pick that belongs to the Dallas Wings. It will be very fun to see where this incredible class of players gets drafted.

The 2025 March Madness Tournament

Before we make it to the WNBA draft, we of course have March Madness. The NCAA's annual tournament has become one of the biggest events in sports culture, and the women's side of the tournament is thrilling.

With so much widespread talent across the country, the tournament has provided fans with Cinderella stories, upsets, record-broken, and weeks straight of pure fun. From the tournament barely providing players with basic workout gear just a few years ago to the women's Final Four surpassing the men's tournament in both hype and viewership numbers — it's become a cultural phenomenon.

The 2025 tournament is looking like it will be thrilling, as the landscape of college basketball opens up and so many teams are title contenders. Just a few weeks into the season now in November, the weekly rankings of the top 25 programs in the country have been all over the place, and the matchups and winners we end up seeing in March may be wildly different than what we predict or even are used to seeing. Mark your calendars now, because March is gonna to creep up sooner than you think.

Golden State Valkyries enter the WNBA

For the first time since the Atlanta Dream in 2008, the WNBA will be welcoming a brand new franchise into the league. Last September, the league announced that Golden State would be getting a team, later announced as the Golden State Valkyries.

The Valkyries will officially be playing in the 2025 WNBA season, expanding the league to 13 teams from 12. The WNBA held an expansion draft for the team to pick from a pool of WNBA players on Dec. 6.

Up next is free agency and the 2025 WNBA draft, where the Valkyries will pick No. 5 in the first round. The team will play out of Chase Center in San Francisco, sharing the space with the Golden State Warriors. The WNBA has been announcing exciting expansion news all year — from the Valkyries name and branding, to news on the draft, and even two more expansion teams to come in 2026, in Toronto and Portland. And just as 2024 was filled with updates on Golden State's entrance into the league, expect 2025 to feature lots of exciting updates on Toronto and Portland's teams.

More records broken

Just as 2024 was filled with records broken in women's basketball, surely 2025 will provide the same. From television viewership, to in-arena attendance, to on-court records and accomplishments, the sport is only growing. With a new WNBA team coming, a new batch of rookies, and an entirely new league incoming, 2025 is looking to become even bigger for women's basketball than 2024.

The existing players in the sport are at their best, and the accessibility of women's basketball is only going to attract more young players to the sport. The WNBA has already announced that the 2025 WNBA Finals will be a best-of-seven series as opposed to the best-of-five series we watched this year, and the league will play 44 regular season games in 2025 as opposed to 40 in 2024. The sport is also becoming more global than ever before, with teams traveling to play exhibitions and debut games internationally. The WNBA has held exhibition games in Canada for the past two years, with the first held in Toronto in 2023 and the second in Edmonton in 2024.

The NCAA has also been holding games in Paris, France and next year will expand to play more games in Europe. By the time 2026 comes, the WNBA will be regularly international as well, with the Toronto team being the league's first franchise outside of the USA.

2024 showed us that there is no limit to the growth we can see in women's basketball in just one year, and 2025 is already shaping up to be a thrilling year for fans.

For more great women's basketball coverage, check out our hub pages for the WNBA and Women's College Basketball, as well as The Player's Tribune podcast, Sometimes I Hoop, hosted by Haley Jones.