ESPN's Sara Gaiero: Broadcasting the WNBA In Its 25th Season Is A Great Responsibility New season will open in REMI workflows with hopes of getting more resources to site throughout the year By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital
Friday, May 14, 2021 - 1:32 pm
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
It's a milestone year for the WNBA. Heading into its twenty fifth season, the WNBA and its broadcast partners at ESPN, CBS Sports, and NBA TV are ready for a year of not only celebration but significant momentum for the league.
The WNBA tips off with four games on Friday evening but, for ESPN, the year begins with a nationally-broadcast doubleheader on ABC on Saturday afternoon (Chicago Sky visits the Washington Mystics at 1 p.m. ET followed by Las Vegas Aces at Seattle Storm at 3 p.m. ET).
The Worldwide Leader has been side-by-side with the WNBA since the league first debuted in 1997 and for those working on those game broadcasts today, its an opportunity that the crew behind the scenes relishes.
It's an awesome moment for all of the people here that work on the WNBA, says Sara Gaiero, senior managing producer, ESPN. It's tremendous to think that for 25 years, we've been part of bringing this sport to our fan base. To see the growth of the sport and to see how the athletes have evolved and become so strong and powerful with their voices on and off the court has been truly amazing to watch over the 25 years. It's just an honor. It's a great honor and I take great responsibility in doing right by the W and this sport and finding ways throughout the season to celebrate this league through our production. It's just a great responsibility to be leading this initiative this year.
ESPN will open the season relying largely on REMI (or at home ) production workflows with live games being cut from either of ESPN's facilities in Bristol or Charlotte. That includes the Live from Home model that allow on-air announcers and analysts to call games from their own set ups at their homes.
There's plenty of familiarity there as WNBA has been produced this way for many years at the network, but Gaiero says that as COVID vaccination rates increase/COVID-19 cases decline and more arenas across the league open up, the goal is to ramp up those on-site resources.
It's our intention to get our crew out to site, she says, but we are keeping health and safety in the forefront of all of our decision making. We're still very mindful of what's going on around us. I think this provides us the opportunity to make enhancements that we can roll it out where it makes sense and learn from what we've done and then make improvements upon that. I do think that it'll be different come September, October.
ESPN also has plans in place to develop a slate of features and interviews to celebrate the first 25 years of the WNBA. One date on the schedule that Gaiero says to keep an eye on is the showdown between the New York Liberty and the Los Angeles Sparks on June 20. Its a meeting of the two teams that played in the very first WNBA game nearly 25 years to the date on June 21, 1997. We're earmarking that as our ultimate celebration of everything that has happened in the 25 years of this league, she says.
When reflecting on the 25 years of the WNBA one would be ill-advised to neglect the impact of ESPN's Vice President, Women's Sports Programming and Acquisitions Carol Stiff. A veteran of ESPN for more than 30 years, Stiff leads the networks's efforts in the WNBA and NCAA women's basketball and played a critical role in first bringing women's basketball to the national television masses. She is also slated to be inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame as a part of its 2021 class.
[Carol] was there Day One that this league started and it's her advocacy of this league and of this sport and her constant persistence to push for visibility that have made such a huge difference, says Gaeiro. All of that is why we're here celebrating 25 years. She's been an amazing person behind the scenes for this league and we wouldn't be here if she wasn't who she is. She is truly a legend and I'm so grateful to be able to work with her.
The WNBA season at ESPN begins with a doubleheader on ABC this Saturday. Chicago Sky visits the Washington Mystics at 1 p.m. ET followed by Las Vegas Aces at Seattle Storm at 3 p.m. ET.
North America Stories
12/06/2026
YES Network and The Gotham Sports App will air seven Athletes Unlimited Softball...
12/06/2026
The United Football League will host its FAST Innovation Suite at the 2026 United Bowl presented by Credit One Bank on Saturday, June 13 at 3:00 p.m. ET at Audi...
12/06/2026
PTZOptics and LayerJot will present live demonstrations at InfoComm 2026 showing how natural-language AI prompting, robotic camera control, and on-device comput...
12/06/2026
MultiDyne Video and Fiber Optic Systems will exhibit at InfoComm 2026, featuring...
12/06/2026
Ateme has announced that Eurovision Services is using Ateme's software-based frame-rate conversion technology for international live event workflows. The de...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin and Simplestream have announced a partnership with Xperi to simplify the launch of OTT streaming services on TiVo OS smart TVs and devices. The collabo...
12/06/2026
Net Insight has announced that a multinational technology company is deploying a...
12/06/2026
MLB Players Inc., the business arm of the MLB Players Association, has announced a partnership with Athletes First to develop and sell brand partnerships across...
12/06/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D) and VuWall have announced the CommandKeyboard-Advanc...
12/06/2026
Comcast Smart Solutions announces a new smart technology deployment with Major L...
12/06/2026
Elevation Worship completed the initial leg of its Elevation Nights 2026 tour ...
12/06/2026
AJA Video Systems has announced KONA IP25 support for Colorfront Transkoder and ...
12/06/2026
Audinate Group Limited (ASX: AD8) will exhibit at InfoComm 2026 (Booth C7321, Ce...
12/06/2026
Pac-12 Commissioner Teresa Gould has announced the appointment of Scott Adametz as Chief Technology Officer. The Pac-12 describes the hire as the first CTO appo...
12/06/2026
Grass Valley has announced AMPP Edge Live, a production system combining Grass Valley hardware, NVIDIA Blackwell GPU acceleration, and AMPP OS in a single platf...
12/06/2026
At one time a trailblazer with the launch of the Longhorn Network, the Universit...
12/06/2026
Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press rel...
12/06/2026
Chyron has announced PAINT 10.4, an update to its illustrated replay and sports ...
12/06/2026
SVP, Production Mark Gross: With the new schedule, with not having every Sunday night, it's given us an opportunity to take a step back and reimagine what ...
12/06/2026
For Televisa Technical Engineering Manager Roberto N nez Ibarra and the small team of 12 technicians and two production personnel at the IBC things are already ...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
AJA Announces KONA IP25 Integration with Colorfront Software
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Collaboration enables uncompressed SMPTE ST 2110 I/O ...
12/06/2026
URSA Cine 12K LF Used to Create Visuals for STUTS' K-Arena Concert
Brie Clayton June 12, 2026
0 Comments
Organic visuals projected on a giant scre...
12/06/2026
MTI FILM Acquires Mango New Edit, Expanding its Global Post-Production Services ...
12/06/2026
AI Point Tracking Speeds Up Complex VFX Tracks in Mocha Pro
Jessie Electa Petrov June 12, 2026
0 Comments
The 2026.5 release adds automatic point trac...
12/06/2026
Bitmovin, a provider of video streaming solutions, has partnered with Simplestream, a provider of OTT and broadcast solutions, and technology provider Xperi, to...
12/06/2026
Leostream Corporation, creator of the world-leading Leostream Remote Desktop Access Platform, today announced Jigsaw24, a leading B2B IT solutions provider wit...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/06/2026
Back to All News
Netflix Unveils First-Look Images from Villaflor, Santiago Mitre's New Film
Entertainment
12 June 2026
GlobalArgentina
Link copied to ...
12/06/2026
Back to All News
Cross the Boundaries of the Real World into the Spirit Realm i...
12/06/2026
A fentanyl countermeasure that adapts to combat future black-market drugs Scripps Research scientists developed a vaccine that teaches the immune system to rapi...
11/06/2026
The immense size of the tourney and its Atlantic-spanning operation also disting...
11/06/2026
Nielsen has released a new soccer fandom consumer research report, The Fans Behind The Game: FIFA World Cup 2026 Edition, examining the soccer audience in the...
11/06/2026
Telemundo will launch its FIFA World Cup 2026 coverage on Thursday, June 11 with...
11/06/2026
FuboTV Inc. has announced a distribution agreement with NBCUniversal. Fubo customers can now stream Telemundo and Universo, with NBC Sports Network (NBCSN), NBC...
11/06/2026
DAZN has announced its in-app features for FIFA World Cup 2026 coverage in Spain...
11/06/2026
Roblox has released the 2026 Roblox Digital Expression Report: Wave 4 - Sports D...
11/06/2026
FIFA has unveiled DNA, the Official FIFA World Cup 2026 Anthem, performed by A...
11/06/2026
ESPN will provide English- and Spanish-language news and information coverage of FIFA World Cup 2026 across its U.S. media platforms from June 11 through July 1...
11/06/2026
The latest product of the outstanding RIT Sports Network program, this recent grad from Long Island is carving out a promising path in broadcast engineering
In...
11/06/2026
DAZN has announced a multi-year agreement to make DSPORTS channels available to ...
11/06/2026
Laura Dern at the 1986 Sundance Institute Directors Lab (Photo by Eric Edwards)
By Lucy Spicer
It takes a village to bring together the Sundance Institute lab...
11/06/2026
MTI FILM acquires Mango/New Edit Posted by MTI Film on June 10, 2026
LOS ANGELES, CA - June 2026 - MTI FILM, the multiple Emmy Award winning Hollywood post-p...
11/06/2026
Study underscores the need for authoritative content intelligence to build trust...
ESPN's Sara Gaiero: Broadcasting the WNBA In Its 25th Season Is A Great Responsibility New season will open in REMI workflows with hopes of getting more resources to site throughout the year By Brandon Costa, Director of Digital 
