Locked On Women’s Basketball: The WNBA can’t stay healthy — Inside the causes and consequences of the injury epidemic

Seehafer, a physical therapist and assistant professor, authored an epidemiological study on WNBA injuries that was published in March. Part of the study involved tracking WNBA injuries, which he has continued into the 2025 season (you can find and bookmark the tracker here). Powell and Seehafer started the discussion by outlining the key issues with tracking injuries and major concerns emerging from the data:

“It sounds aggressive, and maybe it is to an extent, but also, the injuries are becoming a very legitimate, large problem,” Seehafer said. “I’ve only been tracking this data for the past three seasons. But if you look at the number of injuries and illnesses that have occurred this year, as of this recording, we’re up to 172, which is only four less than occurred in all of 2023, and last year there was like 200-something.

“So we have a little bit ways to go, but we’re tracking if they keep progressing at the rate that they have … we’re looking at, as far as I’m aware, an all-time high, not only in terms of number of injuries and illnesses that have occurred this season, but games missed as of right now. As far as I’m aware, the high is 789, which happened, again, two seasons ago. … We crossed the 650 mark [today], Friday, Aug. 1. … It wouldn’t surprise me if we end up closer to 1,000 games missed than the 789 number, which is, it’s concerning.”

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Then Seehafer and Powell dug into the data behind this season’s injury rate and explained how significant it is compared to past seasons and past research:

“If you look at … the injuries that have occurred by number and by body part so far this season, so you can see 172 total injuries, 651 games lost,” Seehafer explained. “And what you’ll notice right away is … most of the injuries occur at the knee, the leg (which is often hamstring strains, calf strains, that kind of stuff) and the ankle. And if you look at not only previous seasons, but previous research, that’s pretty consistent with what we normally see in not only women’s basketball, but men’s basketball too. It’s a running-, jumping-, cutting-heavy sport, so we would expect to see lots and lots of lower extremity injuries.

“Now, if we look at the cumulative data, which talks more about how these injuries have played out over the last two and a half seasons to this point … we’ve had almost 100 ankle injuries, which is statistically more than any other body part. And again, that’s consistent with the research. If we look at knee injuries, we see that there’s been so far, 768 games lost due to knee injuries, 400 of which have come this year, by the way. … Knee injuries tend to be significantly more severe than any other body part, and that, again, is consistent with what we would see in the research. So really, even though we’re seeing things that have more or less played out in the past research, really what we’re seeing is more so over the past two and a half seasons, there’s been a total of 551 total illnesses or injuries and over 2,000 games lost. … in the past research before my PhD dissertation, that was just not even in the realm of the numbers.”

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As for what might be behind all these injuries, there’s no singular answer. But Seehafer and Powell explored some possibilities:

“When there’s some other summer competition, you’re going to have more rest time, just because the athletes will take a month off in the middle of the season,” Seehafer said. “… Really, any kind of physical activity, you need to have rest breaks in order for the body to recover. So essentially, whenever you do something physically exerting, whether it’s running a mile or doing a bench press or playing a basketball game, the reason why people become sore is because that’s the body’s pain response to damage within the body. So if we’re not giving the body enough time to rebuild itself, heal that damage that has been imposed upon it, then that tissue is just going to be … [at] heightened risk for injury. Basically, if it’s already damaged, the chance of it becoming even more severely damaged is just going to increase.

“So really, if you’ve looked over this time as well since the pandemic, the [WNBA] has systematically been increasing the amount of games over that five years to a high of 44 this year, without actually increasing the number of days in the season, at least not to a significant amount. So basically, they’re cramming in more games, but not extending the season, and that just gives them less and less time for athletes to recover.”

Tune in to hear more from Powell and Seehafer about what might be behind all these injuries, and how they’re impacting the league on and off the court. Make sure to subscribe to the Locked On Women’s Basketball podcast to keep learning about women’s college basketball, the WNBA, basketball history and much more!