The WNBA achieved yet another milestone in viewership, reaching a record high on Ion during the recent Friday broadcast. According to Sports Media Watch, the matchup between Caitlin Clark’s Indiana Fever and the Washington Mystics garnered an average of 1.02 million viewers, marking the first time the WNBA has crossed the one million viewership threshold on Ion. This figure significantly surpasses the previous record of 724,000 viewers, which was established just two weeks prior during another game featuring Clark and the Fever against the LA Sparks.
Furthermore, the positive trend continued with the second half of Friday’s doubleheader on Ion, a regional broadcast, drawing an average of 528,000 viewers. This also stands as a record for an Ion game not featuring Clark and the Fever.
Shifting to Saturday’s programming, ABC aired a game between the New York Liberty and Connecticut Sun, with neither Clark nor the Fever scheduled to play. Despite this, the matchup attracted an impressive audience, averaging 962,000 viewers. This places it as the seventh-highest viewership of the WNBA season and the second-largest for a game not involving the Fever. The only non-Fever game to outperform it was the LA Sparks-Las Vegas game on May 18, which aired directly after a Fever-Liberty game on ABC.
In terms of overall viewership trends, the WNBA has seen substantial growth compared to previous years. Across ABC, CBS, ESPN, ESPN2, Ion, and NBA TV, the league is averaging 667,000 viewers this season, a notable increase from last year’s average of 505,000 viewers across ABC, CBS, ESPN, and ESPN2. Notably, NBA TV’s viewership last season lagged behind significantly, averaging only 46,000 viewers per game. Excluding NBA TV from the WNBA’s 2024 viewership data, the league’s average viewership rises to 925,000 per game across ABC, CBS, ESPN, ESPN2, and Ion.
While Caitlin Clark’s presence has undoubtedly influenced the WNBA’s viewership, games not involving the Fever still command a substantial audience. Across all networks, these games average 414,000 viewers, rising to 582,000 viewers on networks excluding NBA TV. It’s worth noting that WNBA games are also available on Prime Video, although viewership data for these broadcasts is not provided by Nielsen, and Amazon has not released specific information on viewership figures.
Looking ahead, the WNBA continues its broadcast schedule with exciting matchups planned for the upcoming weekend. ESPN will air the Seattle-Dallas game and Prime Video will feature Las Vegas-Phoenix on Thursday. Friday’s games include Chicago-Washington and LA-Minnesota on Ion, while CBS and ABC will showcase Connecticut-Dallas and New York-Las Vegas respectively on Saturday. Finally, CBS and ABC will broadcast Chicago-Indiana and Seattle-Phoenix on Sunday.