The longest-tenured WNBA broadcaster had its most-watched season yet.
WNBA games averaged 1.4 million viewers across the ESPN networks during the regular season, up 17% from last year and the highest average yet for the company, which has carried the league dating back to its inaugural season in 1997. In particular, ABC averaged 1.6 million and ESPN 1.2 million, up 9 and 32 percent respectively from a year ago.
While last year’s WNBA season ran into the beginning of the new Nielsen “Big Data + Panel” era, comparisons are to last season’s panel-only viewership. (Compared to last year’s Big Data + Panel figures, ESPN/ABC was up a more modest 7% from 1.3 million.)
ESPN finished its regular season slate averaging 1.9 million for Lynx-Fever on Tuesday night, marking the network’s fourth-largest audience of the season behind three other Fever games in August — Fever-Dream (2.58M), Liberty-Fever (2.01M) and Fever-Tempo (1.85M). The second half of Tuesday’s doubleheader, Sparks-Aces, followed with 775,000.
The ESPN networks ranked second — or second and third if viewed individually — among WNBA broadcasters this season.
NBC held the top spot with an average of 1.75 million for its seven-game schedule across a Nielsen-measured linear audience and streaming viewership tracked by Adobe Analytics. The network’s most-recent game was also its most-watched, as 3.31 million (Nielsen + Adobe) tuned into Fever-Sky on August 23.
Also topping the million mark this season was CBS, which averaged 1.275 million for its expanded 20-game schedule — up 9% from last year’s nine-game slate (1.17M). Note that compared to last year’s Big Data + Panel figure, this year’s average was actually down a hair from 1.276 million.
CBS finished its season with 751,000 for Mercury-Wings opposite college football games last Saturday. That was one of the few games on the network this season to average fewer than one million viewers, as 14 of 20 hit the seven-figure mark. Its most-watched game was Liberty-Fever in July at 2.58 million.
Overall, four networks across three companies averaged at least one million viewers for their WNBA packages this season — NBC, ABC, ESPN and CBS.
As for the other networks, Scripps-owned ION finished the season averaging 617,000 for its regional game windows, down 2% from last year’s Big Data + Panel figure of 627,000. (A comparison to last year’s panel-only figure was not immediately available.)
The network’s final telecast last Friday, featuring Fever-Tempo, averaged 1.32 million viewers — its second-largest audience of the season and third-largest WNBA audience since it began carrying games in 2023. Six games on ION this season topped the million viewer mark, topped by Fever-Wings in August (1.62M).
Prime Video finished its first Nielsen-rated WNBA season with an average of 437,000 viewers. The streamer has carried WNBA games since 2021, but this season marked its first as one of the league’s primary broadcast partners, having obtained rights as part of its broader agreement with the NBA. It’s top game was Fever-Wings in August (1.07M).
Average viewership for USA Network, which carried games in the final days of the season, will not be final until Monday. The network’s top game so far this season was Fever-Valkyries in July (1.14M).
With some USA and NBA TV numbers still outstanding, a final across-all-networks average for WNBA games this season will not be available until Monday.
