WNBA Finals hits million viewer mark for first time in 21 years

[RandySF]

The WNBA Finals scored its largest audience in more than two decades as over a million viewers watched Minnesota’s Game 1 comeback against New York.

Thursday’s Lynx-Liberty WNBA Finals Game 1 averaged a 0.6 rating and 1.14 million viewers on ESPN, marking the largest WNBA Finals audience since Game 2 of the 2003 series on ABC (Sparks-Shock: 1.28M), the largest Game 1 audience in Finals history and the tenth-largest audience in the history of the event.

The previous high for a Finals opener was 1.07 million for Game 1 of the Mercury-Comets 1998 series on ESPN and Lifetime. (If one wants to get technical, the single-elimination 1997 final would still rank as the top “Game 1” with 2.85 million on NBC.) The 1998 series would likely still come out ahead all things being equal, as Nielsen did not track out-of-home viewing prior to 2020.

It was just five years ago that Game 1 of the Sun-Mystics WNBA Finals averaged 238,000 viewers on ESPN, the smallest audience for any game in Finals history. Viewership has increased for each subsequent Game 1, rising to 351,000 for Aces-Storm in the 2020 “bubble,” 469,000 for Sky-Mercury in 2021, 555,000 for Sun-Aces in 2022 and 729,000 for Liberty-Aces last season.



https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2024/10/wnba-finals-most-watched-game-21-years-lynx-liberty-opener/

[Simeon Salus]

1. And it was a terrific game, won by 2 in OT.

I was a bit concerned when the Lynx were down by almost 20 in the 2nd quarter but they made a scoring run which made it clear they weren't out. The Lynx weren't in the lead until the final minute of regular time.

Breanna Stewart typically shoots 87% at the free throw line; her miss at 0.8 remaining kept the tie and gave Minnesota the opportunity they needed.

It was a great basketball game.

[hawkeye21]

2. Quite a coincidence that this happened after Caitlin Clark joined the league

Yep. Quite a coincidence indeed.