ESPN’s broadcast of Tuesday night’s WNBA matchup between the Las Vegas Aces and New York Liberty drew a big viewing audience.
Madeline Kenney of the New York Post shared the numbers on X (formerly Twitter) on Tuesday.
“The numbers from last night’s nationally televised Aces-Liberty game are in: The Liberty win averaged 701K viewers, peaking at 813K on ESPN,” Kenney said. “It was the most-watched non-Indiana WNBA game on ESPN (E1) since 1999.”
Kenney also clarified that its standing is compared to other regular-season games, not postseason.
There is certainly no doubt that with Caitlin Clark, the Indiana Fever remain the WNBA’s top draw. An ESPN broadcast of a Fever preseason game drew 1.3 million in May. Ion’s broadcast of Indiana’s game against the Dallas Wings also drew over one million viewers, though Clark was sidelined with an injury there.
That said, the Aces and Liberty matchup is about as good as any the WNBA has. Those two teams combined to win the last three WNBA championships (Vegas won in 2022 and 2023, New York in 2024) and presently have the first and third-best records in the league this season.
So Tuesday night’s matchup drawing such a strong number is a positive sign for the league.
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