WNBA and Delta Air Strains to Constitution Recreation Flights for Full Season

Delta Air Strains will constitution the vast majority of WNBA recreation flights after the basketball league agreed to shuttle its gamers in personal planes for the 2024 season.

The WNBA league-wide constitution program will probably be phased in with the beginning of the 2024 common season, which formally kicks off Might 14, in accordance with the league. That is the primary time a program like that is being carried out.

The choice to function a fully-private constitution program comes as stars like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese began taking part in professionally this yr, garnering mass curiosity. Beforehand, constitution flights had been solely allowed within the WNBA for particular circumstances, like if a crew had back-to-back video games, ESPN reported.

The transfer comes after video emerged of Indiana Fever gamers — Clark’s crew — boarding a industrial flight to Dallas Fort Price Worldwide Airport (DFW) for a recreation. Clark’s explosive recognition has helped put a highlight on the idea of flying personal.

“I am simply tremendous excited for the gamers who’ve been on this league for a extremely very long time and have actually deserved this for years and years and years,” Clark advised the Indianapolis Star. “I am simply excited, I am grateful, at no matter level that it’s, that it occurs. It will be nice for us, it will make restoration simpler, it will make journey simpler, it simply makes life loads simpler for lots of people… I am simply very lucky to come back to this league and have this chance the primary yr that I am right here.”

Delta’s CEO Ed Bastian stated within the assertion the airline was excited to “add the WNBA to our prestigious roster of sports activities constitution companions as we take part on this historic development in girls’s skilled sports activities.”

The timeline for when these flights would begin wasn’t instantly clear.

“Now we have been laborious at work to rework the enterprise and construct a sustainable financial mannequin to assist constitution flights for the long run,” WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert stated in a press release. “Whereas we nonetheless have plenty of work to do to proceed to execute our strategic plan, we really feel assured that the time is now to institute a full constitution program to exhibit our dedication to main with a player-first agenda.”

This system is predicted to value about $25 million per yr for the subsequent two seasons, ESPN famous.