Example: you buy an apartment building for $1m, it costs 100k a yr to operate it, you collect 100k a yr in rent, so income =$0. But every year you have it appraised and the value of the building goes up like 250k a yr. No income but lots of unrealized profit. WNBA is the building. Simple enough?
Your analogy is way off, WNBA is a business that has never produced a profit and is not valued more than the money it brings in. Your analogy would have been more accurate have you added a large rental company with hundreds of millions of assets was supplementing my rent income.
Again it hasn't produced an OPERATING profit. The value of the league and its franchises have increased dramatically and therefore there is a "profit" in terms of capital appreciation.