The 2024 Finals of the US' elite Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) brought in the largest audience for that property in over two decades, with over a million viewers having tuned in to Minnesota Lynx’s opening win against New York Liberty on October 13 (yesterday).
The WNBA Finals Game 1 had an average viewership of 1.14 million on ESPN, the largest WNBA Finals audience since Game 2 of the 2003 series on ABC, which had 1.28 million average viewers, as well as the largest Game 1 audience in Finals history, and the tenth-largest audience overall in the Finals’ history.
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The previous record for Game 1 was 1.07 million in the 1998 series between Phoenix Mercury and the Houston Comets, broadcast on ESPN and Lifetime.
Five years ago, the 2019 Game 1 of the Connecticut Sun versus Washington Mystics WNBA Finals averaged only 238,000 viewers on ESPN, giving the match the smallest audience for any game in Finals history.
Viewership has increased every year since, rising to 351,000 for Las Vegas Aces versus Seattle Storm in 2020, 469,000 for Chicago Sky versus Phoenix Mercury in 2021, 555,000 for Sun versus Aces in 2022, and 729,000 for Liberty versus the Aces in 2023.
The 2024 Game 1 was the 27th WNBA telecast this season to reach the one million-viewer mark. Before this year’s edition, the most million viewer audiences in a single season was 15 in 1998. Of the 27 telecasts, Game 1 was only the third that did not feature or directly follow icon Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever.
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By GlobalDataThe match aired at the same time as NFL Thursday Night Football and the Major League Baseball Postseason. This is easier competition than usual for the Finals, which typically open on a Sunday afternoon during the most-watched NFL (American football) windows.
Last week the WNBA, in its 2024 post-season playoffs, drew the highest viewership ratings in 25 years.
Aired on Disney-owned sports broadcasting giant ESPN, the first 17 games of the 2024 playoffs, which saw the initial eight teams whittled down to two, averaged 970,000 viewers, more than double the average in the 2023 season and the highest average across the first round and semi-finals of the playoffs since 1997, the WNBA’s inaugural campaign.
Notably, this came despite the Fever and Clark being knocked out in the first round.
Clark has been the catalyst for strong viewership league-wide this year as her rivalry with Chicago Sky rookie Angel Reese spilled over from the college basketball national championship to the league, capturing national attention.
WNBA commissioner Cathy Englebert recently announced that from 2025 onward, the schedule of both the regular and post-season will change.
The most prominent of these moves is that the finals of the play-offs will now move to a best-of-seven format, as opposed to best-of-five.
Furthermore, the regular season will be expanded from 40 games per team to 44, owing to the introduction of a 13th franchise to the league, the Golden State Valkyries.
