Rumors

ESPN’s broadcast of Tuesday night’s WNBA matchup between the Las Vegas Aces and New York Liberty drew a big viewing audience. Madeline Kenney of the New York Post shared the numbers on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday. “The numbers from last night’s nationally televised Aces-Liberty game are in: The Liberty win averaged 701K viewers, peaking at 813K on ESPN,” Kenney said. “It was the most-watched non-Indiana WNBA game on ESPN (E1) since 1999.”

Awful Announcing

The earlier game Saturday between the defending champion Las Vegas Aces and New York Liberty averaged 1.3 million viewers on ABC, so add another one million-plus game to the WNBA ledger.

New York Times

Natalie Nakase knew she had the opportunity of a lifetime. After years of serving as an assistant coach — in the G League, NBA, and ultimately the WNBA — she had finally achieved a longtime dream of leading her own team. At last, the 44-year-old former UCLA point guard would be a head coach, selected to lead the WNBA’s incoming expansion team, the Golden State Valkyries. Nakase, who was previously an assistant coach for the Los Angeles Clippers (2018-2020) and Las Vegas Aces (2022-24), has no shortage of experience on the bench. Under Clippers coach Ty Lue, she earned the respect of dozens of NBA players. Under the leadership of Becky Hammon, she won two WNBA championships alongside some of the best players in the sport. To this day, she credits Hammon for helping shape the WNBA into the league it is today — and for giving her a career-altering opportunity. Still, in the wake of her hiring in Golden State, there was someone else in the coaching world Nakase was eager to get to know: Celtics head coach Joe Mazzulla, who just a few months earlier had become the youngest head coach in the NBA to win a championship since Bill Russell did so in 1968 at age 34.

SB Nation

Las Vegas Aces star A'ja Wilson -- a three-time WNBA MVP and two-time league champion -- is signing a six-year contract extension with Nike in one of the richest shoe deals for a women's basketball player, sources told ESPN on Tuesday. The news comes after Wilson was named to Nike's roster of signature athletes in May and announced the launch of her signature shoe, the "A'One," which will be released in spring 2025 prior to the WNBA season.

ESPN

If Caitlin Clark is playing on NBA TV, chances are that the network drew its largest ever WNBA audience. Wednesday’s Aces-Fever WNBA regular season game averaged a 0.39 rating and 678,000 viewers on NBA TV, marking the largest WNBA audience ever on the network. The previous high was set earlier this month by a Fever-Wings game on the Sunday of Labor Day weekend (652K).

Sports Media Watch

That’s around the same time Podziemski ran into Warriors owner Joe Lacob. They both were at a Las Vegas Aces game during summer league and crossed paths at halftime. Lacob, according to Podziemski, told him he’d seen Jazz owner Ryan Smith at dinner the night before and let it be known Podziemski was protected. “He told me, ‘You don’t have anything to worry about. You’re a priority here,'” Podziemski said. “I appreciate that, being a rookie and going into my second year, hearing that from such a prestigious organization. It feels good. I’m wanted somewhere. So, I appreciate them. “They could keep me in the dark until a trade is done. But Mike and Joe were transparent from the draft to the Paul George situation to the Markkanen situation.”

New York Times

The Las Vegas Aces became the first WNBA team to sell out every home game in a season when the final tickets were claimed Thursday for a Sept. 3 matchup against Angel Reese and the Chicago Sky. That game is one of two scheduled for T-Mobile Arena, which is bigger than the Aces’ usual home venue. The Aces will play Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever there on July 2. The other 18 home games for the two-time defending champions are at Michelob Ultra Arena.

Associated Press

Mark Davis is also a huge women’s basketball fan and bought the Las Vegas Aces from MGM International for roughly $2 million in 2021. He poured money into the franchise, including a $40 million practice facility, the first specifically built for a WNBA team. Two WNBA championships later, and the Aces are worth $140 million and tops in the league, by Sportico’s count.

Sportico

After the Las Vegas Aces lost three games in a row for the first time in five years, coach Becky Hammon got a phone call. It was her former boss, San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. "It's funny because we always had an ongoing joke in San Antonio [that] when we would lose, nobody would text, nobody would call," Hammon said. "So I picked up the phone and he's like, 'Hi, how you doing? Just calling to make you laugh, because I know nobody's calling.'"

ESPN

The Aces bounced back with a 103-99 win over the Phoenix Mercury on Thursday before taking on the Liberty. Hammon said Popovich's phone call helped. "He made me laugh; mission accomplished," she said. "It's true, nobody calls you when you're doing terrible. So that was the point of his call. Just to check on where I was mentally. And then we just talked about some different buttons to push. He's always a phone call away, I know."

ESPN

ClutchPoints: LeBron James, Savannah, Rich Paul, Damian Lillard, and Bam Adebayo are in attendance for the Aces-Liberty game 🔥 (via @YahooSports) pic.twitter.com/4nsVPoGRbd

Twitter

A Las Vegas Aces star is getting in on the upcoming NBA All-Star Weekend fun. Ahead of the 2024 NBA All-Star Celebrity Game, potato chip brand Ruffles has teamed up with A’ja Wilson and Boston Celtics forward Jayson Tatum to launch 'Ridgeline Unlocks,' a weekend-long opportunity headlined by a national search for the first-ever fans to take the court and shoot the first shots.

news3lv.com

Mark Haynes: The Sacramento Kings announced the addition of Las Vegas Aces guard Chelsea Gray to the NBC Sports California pre- and postgame broadcast team as an analyst.

Twitter

While a guest on SiriusXM NBA Radio, NBA commissioner Adam Silver confirmed again that the league will consider expansion. Silver was asked directly about Las Vegas as a potential expansion city, and he confirmed that will be under consideration. “Well, number one, I'll say there are no inside candidates. Lots of players, former players, well-known wealthy people out there who've expressed interest in having a Las Vegas franchise. What I've said to everyone, publicly and privately, is that there is no process in place. There have been no secret discussions, no commitments to anyone. I'm obviously thrilled that people are interested," Silver said. "We have a long track record in Vegas. Not that it's a competition, but before those other teams you mentioned were there, we played an All-Star game there. We brought our summer league to Las Vegas. Obviously now we have the WNBA Las Vegas Aces which are incredibly successful there. We're bringing the in-season tournament semifinals and championship game there. So we like the market."

RealGM