Sunday’s Game 5 of the WNBA Finals had explosive viewership, making it the highest-rated championship series since it aired on NBC in the ’90s.
ESPN announced Tuesday that an average of 2.2 million viewers tuned in Sunday night, with the winner-take-all game between the New York Liberty and the Minnesota Lynx peaking at 3.3 million viewers. New York won in overtime, winning the franchise’s first championship.
According to ESPN, this represents a 142% increase in viewership for the Las Vegas Aces compared to last season’s decisive Game 4 against Liberty. The game was the most-watched WNBA Finals since the decisive Game 3 between the Liberty and Houston Comets in 1999, which aired on NBC and drew 3.25 million viewers, according to Front Office Sports. It was a match.
Game 1 of the Lynx vs. Liberty series drew 1.14 million viewers, and ratings steadily increased with each game until Sunday’s Game 5. According to FOS, the ratings are far below the ratings for the 2023 WNBA Finals, which previously had the highest ratings in decades. None of the 2023 finals drew more than 1 million viewers, with average viewership peaking at 889,000 for Game 4.
Game 5, in which New York State defeated Minnesota, exploded in the ratings. (Sarah Steer/Getty Images)
How will the sudden rise in ratings affect CBA negotiations?
The Finals’ ratings cap off a year of explosive growth for the WNBA, fueled in part by the Caitlin Clark phenomenon. The Indiana Fever rookie sensation at the University of Iowa sparked unprecedented interest in the league and was a major contributor to the league’s growth this season.
Game 2 of the first-round playoff game between Indiana and the Connecticut Sun in September drew an average of 2.54 million viewers, peaking at 3.5 million viewers. It was the most watched WNBA game ever broadcast on cable.
However, playoff ratings leading up to the Finals continued to show that the league’s growth was not strictly dependent on Clark. Although the Clarks Fever had not played since losing to the Sun in Game 2, viewership continued to be impressive until the end of the postseason.
Soaring interest rates and the money they generate contributed to a changing financial environment that forced the WNBPA to withdraw from its collective bargaining agreement with the league on Monday. The WNBA recently announced franchise expansions in Portland, Toronto and the California Bay Area, and signed new media rights deals worth about $200 million per year, compared to previous deals worth about $60 million per season. The amount was increased.
The WNBPA will certainly point to the league’s surging postseason viewership in making its case in negotiations for a bigger share of the pie.
