WNBA Postseason Ratings Still Surging Post–Caitlin Clark

The WNBA Finals should have enough drama on the court to make this the league’s most-watched championship round since moving to the best-of-five game format in 2005.

The New York Liberty and Minnesota Lynx are deadlocked at one game apiece, with the Finals shifting to Minnesota for the next two games Wednesday and Friday. A winner-take-all Game 5 would be played back in New York on Sunday.

Last Thursday’s opener was the first WNBA Finals Game 1 in history to surpass one million viewers, with the audience on ESPN coming in at 1.14 million. Ratings for Sunday’s Game 2 on ABC—one of many playoff matchups scheduled head-to-head against NFL action—have not been released.

The mark to beat is 728,000, which was the average across the 2023 WNBA Finals, as the Las Vegas Aces defeated the Liberty three games to one to win their second consecutive title. That figure is No. 8 all time, behind six best-of-three series in the late 1990s and early 2000s, and the inaugural one-game championship round in 1997. Next year, the WNBA Finals will expand to a best-of-seven format.

Caitlin Clark Effect Lingers

Despite an early first-round exit from ratings magnet Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever, the WNBA playoffs still had serious momentum entering the Finals as the league’s most-viewed postseason in 25 years, with games averaging 970,000 viewers. That number was up 142% from 470,000 in 2023, which was the most-watched WNBA playoffs in 16 years.

This year’s semifinals alone were already higher than last year’s WNBA Finals, averaging 850,000 viewers across nine games.