Last year’s WNBA Finals between the Minnesota Lynx and the New York Liberty ended up being the most-watched WNBA Finals series in 25 years, averaging 1.6 million viewers across the five-game series. And while Wednesday’s rematch between the two teams didn’t quite reach those heights in terms of viewership, the ratings were a clear indicator that these two teams continue to draw in viewers.
ESPN WNBA color analyst Rebecca Lobo, who was on the call of Wednesday’s game alongside Ryan Ruocco, took to X to share the viewership numbers from the game.
According to Lobo, an average of 788,000 viewers tuned in to the ESPN broadcast, peaking at 1.1 million viewers.
That’s also up 64 percent compared to last year’s regular-season average of WNBA games on ESPN.
As Lobo pointed out in her post, the Indiana Fever have continued to be a ratings juggernaut this season in comparison to the rest of the league, which stems from the popularity of Caitlin Clark.
But when you look at the most-viewed games that do not involve the Fever, it is pretty clear that the Liberty are establishing themselves as the WNBA’s clear No. 2 draw.
Wednesday’s Liberty-Lynx game marks the third time in the past three weeks that the Liberty have topped 700,000 average viewers in a game, with 702,000 viewers tuning into Monday’s Liberty-Wings game and 701,000 tuning into a July 9 game between NY and the Las Vegas Aces. All three of these games ended up breaking the previous record for the most-watched non-Fever game since 1999.
The question now is, what will ratings look like next time the Fever play the Liberty and Clark is back on the court?
About Reice Shipley
Reice Shipley is a staff writer for Comeback Media that graduated from Ithaca College with a degree in Sports Media. He previously worked at Barrett Sports Media and is a fan of all things Syracuse sports.