WNBA All-Star 2024: ESPN Readies for Competitive Showdown Between WNBA Stars, Team USA VP, Production Sara Gaeiro: Well have our normal game hat on. By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Friday, July 19, 2024 - 12:27 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
The biggest WNBA season ever has reached its midway point and prior to a month-long Olympic break the league and its lead broadcast parter, ESPN, has descended upon Phoenix for All-Star Weekend.
On Friday, ESPN will televise the Skills Challenge and the 3-Point Contest at 9 p.m. ET while ABC will carry a special onsite edition of WNBA Countdown on Saturday at 8 p.m. ET followed by the All-Star Game from Footprint Center at 8:30 p.m. It's the second consecutive year the All-Star Game has been broadcast in primetime.
Hype aside, this year's All-Star Game features a uniquely poignant matchup as a team of WNBA All-Stars will face the U.S. Women's Basketball Team set to head off to Paris for the Olympic Games, which begin next week. With all of the unique matchups between WNBA and Team USA stars, the prospect of super rookies Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese playing together for the first time, and the promise of mre eye balls than ever on the festivities, this is shaping up to be anything but your typical All-Star Game.
We've taken an approach that is somewhat different from a traditional All-Star Game where this is going to be very competitive, says Sara Gaiero, Vice President, Production at ESPN who oversees all women's basketball pro and college for the network. It's not going to be sort of exhibition style in terms of what you normally expect when you tune in to watch the All-Star Game. We very much conversed about how best to document and deliver, knowing that it will be competitive, knowing we've got these really unique pairings and matchings that will just generate interest. I think that will just provide some really fun elements for people. I think it's going to be very, very competitive. We'll have our normal game hat on, if you will, as opposed to more of an entertainment hat.
ESPN says that the camera complement on this event will rival that of the network's efforts during the WNBA Finals. Additionally, the production and operations teams will continue to lean into access through audio, including mic'd up players and coaches and in-game interviews.
Hopefully with some of the player mic opportunities that we have, we can gain some really cool insight into what it's like to be on that team, what the teammates are saying to each other, says Gaeiro. I hope that can be a really fun piece that just humanizes these players a little bit, and we get a little bit behind the curtain during the game with that level of access that we have.
The WNBA has been scorching hot through the first half of the season with ESPN setting numerous records, including the most-watched WNBA game on ABC ever (Indiana Fever vs. New York Liberty: 1.71 million on May 18), the most-watched WNBA game on ESPN networks ever (Indiana Fever vs. Connecticut Sun: 2.1 million on May 14), and the most-watched WNBA game across all networks in 23 years (Indiana Fever vs. Chicago Sky: 2.3 million on June 23).
Going into the season, as with any season, the goal was to see an increase in viewership, Matt Kenny, VP, Programming and Acquisitions at ESPN said to ESPN Front Row. However, I'm not sure anyone could have expected the spikes we've seen this year. In addition, the fact that viewership has sustained throughout the season, smashing multiple records along the way, shows that this recent trend is not a novelty. Instead, it is evidence that this new audience is here to stay-and expand. One of the best aspects of ESPN is that the status quo is never an option. We will continue to collaborate across the company to celebrate, showcase and elevate the league, its players, rivalries and more. We have so much to be optimistic about, and in many ways, we are just getting started.
From my standpoint, adds Gaeiro, the visibility of being able to deliver what we're all experiencing boots on the ground [in Phoenix] is a great moment. We can share the WNBA with the world and that feels so great because the investment that the cities and the league are making in All-Star is definitely a change too from the previous three, four years that I've seen. You can see that excitement from people who are here. The crowds that are coming; the fans. You just feel it and that just speaks to the level of where the game is at right now, and that's what makes it fun.
Additionally, this game is a high-profile sendoff for the U.S. Women's Basketball Team, which plays its first game at the Paris Olympics on June 29 against Japan. The US is shooting for its eight consecutive Gold Medal and haven't lost an Olympic contest since 1992.
It's our opportunity to highlight what the Olympic team is going to prepare and get ready to go do in Paris, says Gaiero. We'll take that opportunity to go tell some of the stories for that team composition and what they've got ahead. That's a really unique opportunity for us, as well, as we hand it off to our NBC colleagues.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
Blackmagic Design Cameras Empower Youth Broadcasting Program
Brie Clayton July 3, 2026
0 Comments
Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 6K Pro and Blackmagi...
04/07/2026
iZotope Joins Boris FX
Boris Yamnitsky July 3, 2026
0 Comments
iZotope, the team behind RX and Ozone, is joining Boris FX. A letter from founder Boris...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
03/07/2026
New bundle & three Single Packs
Continuing to expand their already sizeable orchestral collection, VSL's latest release introduces three new Single Pack...
03/07/2026
Venue installs new ATC-equipped control room
LSO St Luke's, a unique music venue that also serves as the home of the London Symphony Orchestra, have rec...
03/07/2026
Caden Pearson appointed new Commissioning Editor for NITV
3 July, 2026
Media releases
National Indigenous Television (NITV) has strengthened its commitment...
03/07/2026
1 February 2023
SHARE Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email
Munich, Germany, 1st February 2023: Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software technology for digit...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
03/07/2026
Death Star
Andy Marken July 2, 2026
0 Comments
Look, I can't get involved. I've got work to do. It's not that I like the Empire; I hate i...
03/07/2026
Berklee's New Visual Identity: Honoring Our History, Building for What's...
03/07/2026
Scripps Research scientists awarded $2M to advance global disease surveillance Two Gates Foundation grants will expand wastewater surveillance and AI-driven dis...
03/07/2026
Joan Pulupa joins Scripps Research faculty to study the organization of DNA in brain cells and its links to neurodegeneration Using smell-sensing neurons and ad...
02/07/2026
Entering her senior year, this hometown girl is paving a career in live sports production gaining experience in replay and audio and as a TD
In the live-sports...
02/07/2026
In-venue and creative video staffers at the professional and collegiate level ha...
02/07/2026
BLAST, a competitive entertainment company focused on esports, has announced more than $133 million in revenue for 2025, representing more than 40% year-over-ye...
02/07/2026
Riedel Communications has announced official SKAARHOJ panel support for SimplyLive production workflows, enabled through the SimplyLive 2.1 release. The integra...
02/07/2026
The Fire Rescue Service of the Czech Republic has deployed LiveU video-over-bond...
02/07/2026
Gravity Media USA has announced the appointment of Brittney Boston as Head of Business Development, effective July 1, 2026. Based in Nashville, Tennessee, Bosto...
02/07/2026
TwelveLabs, a video intelligence company, has announced $100 million in Series B funding co-led by NEA and NAVER Ventures, with participation from Amazon, Radic...
02/07/2026
The Pro Padel League (PPL) has announced a broadcast partnership with USA Sports that will air five PPL championship matches on CNBC during the 2026 season, the...
02/07/2026
LiveLike, a digital fan engagement platform, has announced eight confirmed FIFA ...
02/07/2026
Cobalt Digital has received Future's Best of Show Award, presented by AV Technology at InfoComm 2026, for its blueCORE family of standalone signal processor...
02/07/2026
Synamedia has announced the appointment of Dr. Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transition...
02/07/2026
The Esports Foundation (EF) and Sony Group Corporation have announced an expanded collaboration for the Esports World Cup 2026 (EWC), taking place in Paris, Fra...
02/07/2026
Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. ( Z') has announced exclusive broadcast and digital rights for the Bundesliga in India for five years, beginning with the...
02/07/2026
An effort uniting News, Sports, Local, and Telemundo, the 50+-camera live produc...
02/07/2026
Zoey Deutch, John Slattery, Ken Marino, Miles Gutierrez-Riley, and Ben Wang appe...
02/07/2026
Stammering, stuttering, strangulated tones
The Crow Hill Company's latest creation promises to be the most original sound set they've produced to d...
02/07/2026
A new era in unmixing and spectral editing
The latest version of Steinberg's spectral audio-editing software has just arrived, building on the strength...
02/07/2026
Aims to simplify additive synthesis
Sine Machine is the debut launch from Melatonin, a Vienna-based developer who have spent the past six years creating wha...
02/07/2026
Products to remain fully active & supported
Following the news of Native Instruments joining the inMusic brand line-up, Academy and Emmy Award-winning visua...
02/07/2026
What you missed!
Last weekend, Saturday 27 June 2026, saw the debut of Sound On Sounds new GearExpo UK event, the largest dedicated pro-audio event to take ...
02/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/07/2026
Following the successful launch of its inaugural APAC Mentoring Programme last month, the Rise AV APAC Regional Council will bring the conversation around mento...
02/07/2026
Blackmagic PYXIS 6K Used to Shoot Director Takahisa Zeze's Cry Out
Brie Clayton July 2, 2026
0 Comments
Highly mobile camera supports tense and de...
02/07/2026
Broadcast Solutions acquires BFE, expanding its lead in European broadcast, medi...
02/07/2026
Berklee Alum and Faculty Perform at Boston Public Library's 250th Anniversar...
02/07/2026
Broadcast Solutions GmbH, a leading systems integrator and provider of innovative solutions for the broadcast media industry, is acquiring BFE Studio und Medien...
02/07/2026
Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has extended the ingest facility at leading Brazilian sports company LiveMode, work...
02/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
02/07/2026
Standalone processors acknowledged for the innovation and value they bring to Pro AV
Cobalt Digital, a leading designer and manufacturer of signal processing ...
02/07/2026
Synamedia announced today the appointment of Dr Tzvi Gerstl as Chief Executive Officer. Paul Segre, who has served as CEO for the past six years, will transitio...
02/07/2026
Screen Australia backs audience-led filmmaking with new insight-driven initiativ...
02/07/2026
Screen Australia refines guidelines for Narrative Content Development and Docume...
WNBA All-Star 2024: ESPN Readies for Competitive Showdown Between WNBA Stars, Team USA VP, Production Sara Gaeiro: Well have our normal game hat on. By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
