Great News: WNBA Players No Longer Have to Take Commercial Flights to Away Games

A nail-biting March Madness tournament, a title game that smashed viewership recordsand greater than a couple of ridiculously long threes (thanks, Caitlin Clark) helped bring the joy of girls’s basketball to a bunch of recent fans—and might need played a component in finally sparking some much-needed change on the professional level as well.

On May 9, the WNBA released an official statement confirming its plans to start a full, league-wide charter flight program. The initiative, which shall be primarily operated by Delta Air Lines, is about to start in the beginning of the 2024 regular season on May 14.

Teams have generally flown industrial (a.k.a. board a plane with the remaining of the masses) because the league began in 1997. Over the previous few years, they’ve been allowed to charter planes (meaning, fly privately with just their teammates coaches, etc.) for “specific instances” (say, back-to-back games, the WNBA Commissioner’s Cup Championship, post-season games, and the finals). Doing it in other situations was straight-up banned. In 2022, the New York Liberty was reportedly fined $500,000 for “multiple violations of league rules,” which included taking eight unsanctioned regular-season chartered flights, in accordance with the

That same 12 months, WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert told ESPN that while they’d like to have league-wide charters, the estimated $20 million cost wasn’t within the cards. “This is something that we’re not going to jeopardize the financial health of the league and be irresponsible about. If we are able to get it funded by sponsors and supporters, great, but that’s not where we’re,” she said.

So what’s modified since then? For one, quite a bit more public interest (and with that, public scrutiny over league decisions)—and financial investment within the athletes. Some of the NCAA athletes had college NIL deals that surged past the million-dollar mark, and, as ESPN’s Michael Voepel points outthis brings “more impetus to guard those investments.”

The travel situation has been top-of-mind within the league for years. When ESPN surveyed 34 WNBA players—starting from rookies to superstars—in 2023 and asked them what they believed to be the largest issue within the WNBA, travel got here up primary.

Flying industrial makes it a complete lot harder for players to perform, to place forth their best effort like their male counterparts within the NBA are capable of do. Air travel just plain sucks, and having to cope with the trouble, delays, jet lag, and overall discomfort—cramped seats after a pair hours of stop-and-start sprints goes to make things —only compounds it, especially when your body is your livelihood.

“We only have probably two actual off days,” Los Angeles Sparks player Kia Nurse told ESPN. “Everyone’s like, ‘Oh, it’s an off day, it’s a travel day. Getting on an airplane and going up three hours, your body swelling, coming down, it’s not an off day.”

In a sport that requires speed and accuracy, adequate rest and recovery is significant to helping your muscles get well so you may sprint down the court, and to mentally recharge so you may nail a pair of free throws. What help that whole process along? The short, fragmented, and achy sleep that comes with spending hours at altitude—and the time spent schlepping your luggage through security, waiting for a delayed flight, and picking up your bags after (which can or may not have actually made it to your destination of selection). And that’s you’re attempting to squeeze a six-foot-seven frame right into a window seat because no aisle options were available.