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In what has been a historical season for the WNBA in many ways continued with the start of the WNBA finals. Game 1 of the series between the Minnesota Lynx and the New York Liberty drew an average audience of 1.1 million viewers. The game went to overtime after Minnesota was down 18 points in the game, they would eventually win 95-93.
That makes it the largest audience to ever watch the first game of a WNBA Finals series. It was also the largest audience for a WNBA Finals game since 2003.
Viewership of the game peaked at 1.5 million and the game was up 57% compared to Game 1 of the 2023 WNBA Finals. That game was carried by ABC and drew an audience of 729,000 viewers.
Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch reports only five years ago, Game 1 of the WNBA Finals averaged just 238,000 viewers. Lewis notes, “viewership has increased for each subsequent Game 1, rising to 351,000 for Aces-Storm in the 2020 ‘bubble,’ 469,000 for Sky-Mercury in 2021, 555,000 for Sun-Aces in 2022 and 729,000 for Liberty-Aces last season.”
The WNBA drew a record 2.35 million fans during the regular season, the largest attendance in league history. 22 regular season games averaged more than one million viewers, 19 of which involved Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever.
