TV Ratings: WNBA Viewers Grew In 2024

With the WNBA’s regular season and first round of the post season concluded, the league has had a memorable season, according to Forbes. 

Building on steady ratings growth in recent years and the popularity of this year’s Women’s March Madness, attendance, merchandise sales and advertiser interest has been on the upswing. In addition, there is an increase in social media posts and media coverage of league games bolstering the league’s growing popularity.

With a growing array of players becoming household names including the 12-player Olympic gold medal team and first-year phenoms Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, more talent will be entering the league from the college ranks. As a result, the WNBA recently signed a new media rights agreement and will be adding four new franchises in the upcoming years.

For the regular season, nationally televised WNBA games averaged 657,000 viewers, the highest audience in 24 seasons. Televised games with Caitlin Clark’s Indiana Fever averaged 1.18 million viewers compared to 394,000 for all other games. Sports Business Journal reports there were a record 22 games that averaged over one million viewers, 19 of which involved the Indiana Fever. The previous high had been in 1998 when 15 games averaged over one million viewers.

The ratings highlight of the season was the WNBA All-Star game in which the WNBA All-Stars defeated the U.S. Olympic team 117-109. The game aired live on ABC on July 20 (six days prior to the Opening Ceremonies) and averaged a record 3.44 million viewers. By comparison, last season’s All-Star game, another primetime contest, averaged 850,000 viewers.

The most watched regular season game was between the Indiana Fever and Chicago Sky with first-year WNBA (and former college) rivals Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. With Chicago defeating Indiana 88-87, the game aired on ESPN on June 23 and averaged 2.35 million, the most watched WNBA game in 23 seasons. The previous week another Indiana-Chicago matchup on CBS averaged 2.25 million viewers. 

According to Nielsen, all four networks that televised WNBA games reported strong year-over-year audience increases. ESPN averaged 1.19 million viewers, an increase of over 170% from 2023. ESPN, ABC and ESPN2 all had televised their highest rated WNBA game of all-time in 2024. The eight games televised by CBS averaged a record high 1.1 million viewers, an over 86% increase from last season. In its second season of televising WNBA games, Scripps Sports ION delivered an average audience of 670,000, an increase of over 133%. NBA TV televised 40 games and averaged 240,000 viewers, its best season in over a decade. The WNBA had a record 54 million unique viewers.