Unlike the usual NFL Sunday games, the WNBA’s flagship television program managed to draw a decent number of viewers despite a bad day on the field.
The Connecticut Suns’ 93-69 blowout Game 1 victory over Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever averaged 1.84 million viewers on ABC. It was the league’s highest postseason delivery since Game 2 of the 2000 WNBA Finals, when 2.12 million watched the Houston Comets defeat the New York Liberty en route to their fourth and final title.
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In keeping with regular-season trends, the non-Clark games didn’t draw anywhere near the numbers Indiana’s loss did. Defending champion Las Vegas’ win over Seattle averaged 461,000 viewers in ESPN’s post-Sunday evening baseball window. New York’s own demolition of Atlanta, in the first playoff game of the day in the early afternoon, drew 410,000 viewers on ESPN. Finally, the Minnesota Lynx’s win over Phoenix drew 403,000 viewers in a game that aired on ESPN after Fever/Sun.
During the 40-game regular season, an average of 1.18 million viewers tuned in to watch the Fever’s multiple nationally televised games, while all other WNBA games averaged 394,000 viewers. (Clark played in 19 games that topped the 1 million-viewer mark, compared to three for all other teams. Before the Rookie of the Year, the last time a WNBA game reached seven figures was in 2008.)
Although Indiana was a much different team after the Olympic break than the mixed-up group that began the season, Connecticut is the favorite to win the series against the young Fever team. With the first round a best-of-three affair, the Sun hopes to bring out the broomsticks on Wednesday night, a game that will air in primetime on ABC. Should Clark, Aliyah Boston and Kelsey Mitchell stave off defeat, ESPN2 will air Game 3 from Indianapolis on Friday night.
But as is typical for any postseason in sports, the later rounds grow in ratings and viewership. While competing directly with the NFL has angered WNBA fans for years, fewer games in the semifinals and finals will be consumed by the sheer presence of football.
Speaking of the NFL, Fox’s late national window averaged 27.3 million viewers versus the WNBA blowout. Baltimore-Dallas was broadcast in 84% of markets, plus regional coverage of San Francisco-LArams and Detroit-Arizona.
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