WNBA
BREAKING RECORDS
The WNBA already had plenty of momentum entering the 2024 season, which tipped off in May. Viewership was up 21% year over year in 2023, the biggest audience in more than two decades. Attendance reached a 13-year high. Then came Caitlin Clark (left). At Iowa, Clark broke the all-time NCAA Division 1 scoring record—for any gender. When the Indiana Fever made her the first pick in April’s WNBA Draft, a stunning 2.45 million viewers tuned in to watch, more than four times the prior record, set in 2004.
Clark leads a talented roster of rookies who developed followings as college stars. For the first time, three teams—the Las Vegas Aces, Dallas Wings, and Atlanta Dream—announced season-ticket sellouts. With valuations, attendance, and viewership rising across all women’s sports, the WNBA has positioned itself as the standard bearer. “We’re building something big here,” says Cathy Engelbert (right), the league’s commissioner. —Sean Gregory
ATHLETIC BREWING COMPANY
BOTTOMS UP
When Bill Shufelt launched booze-free Athletic Brewing in 2017, nonalcoholic (NA) beer naysayers were everywhere. “We’ve been hearing ‘That will never work’ since before we launched,” he says. Undeterred, Shufelt and co-founder John Walker built a product, branding, and marketing plan designed “to create a movement rather than simply put a single SKU on the shelf.” Athletic’s IPAs, lagers, and stouts are certainly moving off shelves. With NA beer sales growth far outpacing the overall beer market last year, Athletic has become the top-selling NA beer in the U.S. Since 2022, it has nearly doubled its market share, passing high-profile products Heineken 0.0 and Bud Zero along the way. The company now brews the top-selling beer at Whole Foods, outpacing any alcoholic suds. Not even the sky’s a limit. In 2023,
