The feel-good viewership story of the year in sports is undoubtedly the WNBA. And while much of that can be attributed to the league’s new superstar Caitlin Clark, viewership figures for the Clark-less semifinals indicate that it’s not just her that people are tuning in for.
Friday viewership for a pair of Game 3’s featuring the New York Liberty against the Las Vegas Aces and the Minnesota Lynx versus the Connecticut Sun crushed last season’s WNBA semifinal average.
The pair of games aired back-to-back on ESPN2, with Lynx-Sun averaging 885,000 viewers in the early evening slot, and Liberty-Aces growing that number to 994,000 viewers in the lead-out, which surpasses Game 1 of the series as the most watched WNBA semifinals game in 22 years. Last season, the WNBA semifinals averaged just 427,000 viewers per Sports Media Watch.
Friday WNBA on ESPN2 via (@sonofthebronx):
Liberty/Aces: 994K
Lynx/Sun: 885K— Sports TV Ratings (@SportsTVRatings) October 7, 2024
Two days later, the pair of Game 4’s on Sunday held up relatively well despite facing direct NFL competition. Liberty-Aces drew 979,000 viewers at 3 p.m. ET on ABC, directly in the heart of the NFL’s “witching hour.” Later that evening, Lynx-Sun averaged 538,000 viewers at 5 p.m. ET on ESPN, a comparatively weak number given the rest of the postseason’s viewership.
Sunday WNBA:
Liberty/Aces, ABC, 3P ET: 979K
Lynx/Sun, ESPN, 5P ET: 538K— Sports TV Ratings (@SportsTVRatings) October 8, 2024
All-in-all, each game of the Liberty-Aces series averaged over 900,000 viewers, though none surpassed the million-viewer milestone that Caitlin Clark’s Indiana Fever regularly eclipsed throughout the season. Nevertheless, all four Liberty-Aces games during the semifinals outdrew the most-watched WNBA Finals game from last season, which averaged 889,000 viewers.
Tuesday’s Game 5 finale between the Lynx and Sun airs on ESPN2 against MLB playoffs and the NHL’s opening night. It’ll be interesting to see whether the weaker of the two semifinals series’ so far can hold its own against another crowded evening of live sports.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.