The rapid growth of women’s sports has been documented in headlines, but Taj Paxton is interested in something deeper: what happens when momentum turns into a permanent shift.
Paxton, a five-time Emmy-winning director, returns to the director’s chair with ‘WNBA 2024: The Year That Changed Everything,’ which is a standalone film within The Rise, Hello Sunshine’s five-part documentary series on women’s professional sports. The first installment premiered December 15, 2025, with additional films scheduled to roll out throughout 2026.
Rather than treating women’s sports as a trend, The Rise positions 2024 as a turning point—one shaped by sold-out arenas, unprecedented merchandise sales, and a level of media attention that moved beyond novelty coverage. The series tracks how those moments converged across leagues, audiences, and cultural conversations, signaling long-term change rather than a temporary surge.
Produced in partnership with Ally and Lyda Hill Philanthropies’ If/Then Initiative, the docuseries spans multiple sports and seasons, connecting individual athlete stories to larger systemic shifts. The approach blends on-the-ground access with broader industry analysis, emphasizing how advocacy, visibility, and institutional investment intersected to redefine what success looks like for women athletes.
WNBA 2024: The Year That Changed Everything anchors the series by focusing on a single season that reset expectations for women’s basketball. The film examines how record-breaking attendance, online engagement, and commercial growth reshaped conversations around value, labor, and coverage—both inside the league and beyond it. Interviews with players, executives, journalists, and cultural commentators place the season in historical context while interrogating what sustainability will require next.
Among those featured is Candace Parker, who also serves as an executive producer, alongside Napheesa Collier, Courtney Williams, Terri Jackson, Jane McManus, Khristina Williams, and Monica McNutt. Their perspectives help frame the season not simply as a victory lap, but as a moment that raised new questions about equity, infrastructure, and long-term investment.
Paxton also executive produces the WNBA installment alongside Patty Ivins Specht and Azon Juan Juaquin Cambron, with Melissa Chusid serving as talent producer. Specht previously directed The New Moneyball, which premiered the same day as WNBA 2024, offering a complementary look at how data, money, and visibility shape modern sports narratives.
The remaining films in The Rise—The Inaugural Season of the PWHL, The Gold Medal Girls of X Games, and The Women of NASCAR—are slated to debut on Peacock in 2026, extending the series’ focus beyond basketball to examine how similar shifts are unfolding across leagues traditionally underrepresented in mainstream sports media.
Collectively, The Rise reflects a growing appetite for sports storytelling that treats women’s athletics as a cultural force rather than a sidebar—capturing not just what changed, but why it mattered, and what comes next.