After a two-month delay, the 2020 WNBA season tips off Saturday morning with an ESPN double-header featuring four of the most exciting teams in the league. Here to hail the return of the women’s game is an excellent ad spot titled “Make Way” that proclaims “It’s time to not just know the WNBA, but the women behind it.”
The spot features the Chicago Sky’s Diamond DeShields, the Las Vegas Aces’ A’ja Wilson, the Los Angeles Sparks’ Nneka Ogwumike, the Minnesota Lynx’s Sylvia Fowles, the Seattle Storm’s Sue Bird, and is voiced by Los Angeles’ Seimone Augustus.
The league signed a new collective bargaining agreement in January, and WNBA players came together to dedicate the 2020 season to the Black Lives Matter movement and formed a Social Justice Council that will design and carry out initiatives to beat back against racism in America over the course of the season and beyond.
The 2020 season begins tomorrow at noon when Diana Taurasi and the Phoenix Mercury take on Ogwumike, Candace Parker, and the Los Angeles Sparks on ESPN. That game is followed by the WNBA debut of Sabrina Ionescu, the No. 1 pick in the 2020 WNBA Draft, as her New York Liberty take on Sue Bird, Breanna Stewart, and the championship favorite Seattle Storm.