ESPN, ABC to air 25 regular-season WNBA games in 2023

Brittney Griner's return to the WNBA with the Phoenix Mercury will be the first of 25 regular-season league broadcasts ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 this season, it was announced Wednesday.

The networks also will air playoff games, and the WNBA All-Star Game will make its ABC primetime debut on July 15 in Las Vegas (8:30 p.m. ET).

Griner, who missed last season after she was detained for 10 months in Russia before her release in a high-profile prisoner swap, will make her return with the Phoenix Mercury as they visit the Los Angeles Sparks when the season tips off May 19 (11 p.m. ET, ESPN/ESPN App).

Griner, who also played pro basketball in Russia, was arrested at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport in February 2022 after Russian authorities said she was carrying vape canisters with cannabis oil. The U.S. State Department had declared Griner to be «wrongfully detained.» She returned to the United States in December and signed in February with the Mercury, who drafted her No. 1 in 2013.

As part of the broadcast coverage, there also is «WNBA Countdown presented by Google,» an ESPN-produced pregame show that will air before at least 10 regular-season broadcasts and during the postseason.

«As we get set to tip off our 27th season, ESPN is once again stepping up as an incredibly engaged broadcast partner for the WNBA,» league commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in a statement. «We are grateful that ESPN will provide significant opportunities to tell the stories of the incredible players across the league in 2023.

»From tip-off weekend through the highly anticipated postseason, ESPN and Google will continue to serve our growing fan base and deliver a robust national platform for WNBA players with game broadcasts and new, regular-season pregame