This past Sunday, a regular-season WNBA matchup between the Seattle Storm and Indiana Fever averaged 2.23 million viewers on ABC, rendering the second most-viewed league contest across ESPN platforms in history. The game accounted for the fifth-largest WNBA audience since 2001, according to Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch, with only this year’s WNBA All-Star Game, WNBA Draft and two matchups between the Fever and Chicago Sky averaging more viewers.
Moreover, the game represents the 20th occurrence that a WNBA telecast has surpassed 1 million viewers, continuing a new record that the league has set throughout the season. Prior to the 2024 regular-season campaign, no WNBA broadcast had reached an average of 1 million viewers since 2008. Eighteen of the 20 games with an average of 1 million viewers or more included the Fever with star rookie guard Caitlin Clark.
Preceding the action, WNBA Countdown averaged 1.1 million viewers, accounting for its largest audience for a regular or postseason game in history. The metric is up 203% over the full-season average on ABC last season. On the year, the WNBA on ESPN is averaging 1.3 million viewers, which is up 186% from last year’s full-season average. The only WNBA game with a higher average viewership than this past Sunday is a matchup between the Fever and Sky on June 23 that accounted for an average of 2.3 million viewers.
The Fever game on Friday against the Phoenix Mercury averaged 1.22 million viewers on ION, the second-largest audience for the network since it started broadcasting WNBA games last year. Following that game, an average of 485,000 viewers watched the Connecticut Sun face the Phoenix Mercury. A rematch of the WNBA Finals between the New York Liberty and Las Vegas Aces averaged 874,000 viewers on CBS, the largest audience for a WNBA game on the network not including Caitlin Clark. Ahead of that matchup, the Minnesota Lynx faced the Washington Mystics with an average audience of 577,000 viewers on CBS.
The National Basketball Association recently agreed to new 11-year media rights deals with The Walt Disney Company (ESPN/ABC), NBCUniversal (NBC/Peacock) and Amazon (Prime Video) reportedly worth a collective $77 billion. Reports indicate that the new deal grants the WNBA approximately $2.2 billion over that term, estimated to be a four-times increase over its current annual revenue in that regard. An agreement between the league and its media partners to revisit the media rights deals after three years could alter the price. Additionally, the league has room to sell what it projects to be two other media rights packages, according to Mike Vorkunov of The Athletic, which could bring in another $60 million annually.
