4 reasons ESPN’s Ruocco, Lobo and Rowe believe the best of the WNBA season is still to come

Following ESPN and ABC’s presentation of the 2025 AT&T WNBA All-Star Weekend, buzz surrounding the league’s rapidly growing popularity shows no sign of stopping.

Longtime ESPN personalities Holly Rowe, Rebecca Lobo and Ryan Ruocco, who have covered the WNBA together for over a decade, discuss what’s to come in the second half of the 2025 WNBA season:

1. Thriving online community
After this year’s All-Star Events achieved historic viewership, Rowe said that the WNBA has a “vibrant and rich” online fandom.

“Anytime we have something pop, it’s bigger and greater online, because that’s where we’ve been living for many, many years,” she said. “We’re just deeper and stronger because that’s where fans had to get their information for so long.”

Ruocco agreed, noting the weekend’s 72-hour “StudBudz” livestream featuring Lynx players Courtney Williams and Natisha Hiedeman.

“I just think when things happen like that, this league is built for it and for creating more energy, momentum and excitement, which I think is what we get going into the second half of the season,” Ruocco said.

2. A new era unfolds
Players like Diana Taurasi and Candace Parker retiring within the last few years has left room for “new blood and new storylines,” according to Rowe.

“I just think there’s been a really fun turning of the page that reflects in [post-game] interviews,” she said.

With so many things changing in the W, one of the things fans will still see is camaraderie with this fresh-faced group, Lobo said.

“There was a real togetherness about the All-Star Game in terms of the players, and they were very unified in a lot of their things, including just having fun,” she said.

3. Star players, thrilling competition and playoff anticipation
With camaraderie still comes a healthy level of competition, and Ruocco said there will be no shortage of that in the back half of the season as rivalries like the Minnesota Lynx versus New York Liberty come into focus.

“I think you have the two best teams in the league this year, and they haven’t met yet. That’s what’s so interesting,” he said. “They’re going to meet multiple times between now and the end of the season, two of which we have on our air, including next Wednesday.”

And as anticipation for the postseason begins to mount, Ruocco predicts a repeat Lynx versus Liberty final showdown – but not without some heat from the Indiana Fever and Phoenix Mercury.

“If [Caitlin Clark] is healthy, they’re going to be a tough team to face in the playoffs,” he said of Clark’s Fever. “Phoenix haven’t even been fully healthy, really. They’re interesting because they have some stars and they have some role players who have fit into their system really well.”

4. ESPN’s longstanding connection with women’s basketball
At the end of the day, fans can expect to get the same voices of the WNBA they’ve trusted for so many years on ESPN.

“I feel like we are seen as part of the league to some degree, and that’s something that we take a lot of pride in,” Lobo said of the trio. “And I think there’s been some fan responsiveness to that as well. You know, excitement thinking, ‘How many ‘you bets’ are we going to get in this game?’”

These voices are also going to be heard more and more with ESPN’s continued coverage of the W, promising to energize loyal fans and draw in devoted newcomers.

“We have more games, more programming, more conversations happening on our air than we’ve ever had before around the WNBA,” said Rowe. “Every platform we have is touching the W in some way. And I think that’s new and exciting and positive for our company.”

Ruocco, Lobo and Rowe will call the Indiana Fever versus Chicago Sky game Sunday, July 27 at 3 p.m. ET on ABC and ESPN+.

Ruocco was recently on the “06010 ESPN Communcations podcast” discussing the excitement around WNBA All-Star and the second half of the season: