New heights: WNBA to provide full-time charters

NEW YORK — The wait for full-time charter flights for WNBA teams finally is over with commissioner Cathy Engelbert announcing the league’s plans to start the program this season.

“We intend to fund a full-time charter for this season,” Engelbert said Tuesday in a meeting with sports editors.

She said the league will launch the program “as soon as we can get planes in places.”

Engelbert said the program will cost the league around $25 million per year for the next two seasons.

The WNBA already had announced at its draft last month plans to once again pay for charter flights for the entire playoffs as well as for back-to-back games that require air travel during the upcoming season.

The league’s schedule features more back-to-back sets this season with the WNBA taking a long break for the Olympics in late July and early August. The league spent $4 million on charters in 2023.

Engelbert said before the WNBA draft that the league needs to be in the right financial position to charter planes.

The WNBA is attracting more attention than ever thanks to rookies such as the Indiana Fever‘s Caitlin Clark, who helped the NCAA reach its best viewership in history for women’s basketball, with nearly 19 million fans watching the title game, along with the Chicago Sky‘s Angel Reese, who went to the Met Gala on Monday night, and the Los Angeles Sparks‘ Cameron Brink.