Aces’ championship victory peaked at 1.3 million viewersGetty Images
Game 4 of the 2023 WNBA Finals between the Las Vegas Aces and the New York Liberty averaged 889,000 viewers, marking the most-watched Game 4 WNBA Finals on record, and up 124% from compared to Game 4 in 2022. The Aces’ championship victory peaked at 1.3 million viewers. The entire 2023 WNBA Finals presented by YouTube TV on ESPN platforms averaged 728,000 viewers, making it the most-watched WNBA Finals in 20 years, and up 36% from to 2022. The 2023 WNBA playoffs on ESPN platforms also averaged 470,000 viewers, making it an average of 470,000 viewers. the most watched playoffs in 16 years (ESPN PR).
FIRM BUT NOT CIGAR: In Washington, D.C., Candace Buckner wrote that the WNBA and its network partners have “boasted about the increase in viewership,” but “don’t be blinded by celebrity brilliance or impressed by the numbers that were handpicked to make headlines.” Bucker: “On the contrary, I encourage – and expect – that this 27-year-old league will grow and truly have its moment.” She noted that this “happens elsewhere in women’s sports as well.” A volleyball game in Nebraska draws 92,003 fans, and an exhibition basketball game in Iowa draws 55,646, “nearly double the previous record.” The LSU-Iowa championship game “set the standard for rankings in women’s basketball.” The W, even with its dream matchup pitting Aces F A’ja Wilson, Gs Kelsey Plum and Chelsea Gray against Liberty Fs Breanna Stewart and Jonquel Jones and G Sabrina Ionescu “didn’t come close to those kinds of numbers.” wow”. » Scheduling the W’s glamor event during football season – with “two of the four games broadcast right in the middle of NFL Sundays – did not help boost ratings.” For years, it has been this way “through the structure of the current media deal in which Finals matches are broadcast exclusively on ESPN and ABC.” Because these networks “don’t air NFL games on Sundays, they’ve filled the void with the WNBA Finals.” But when the deal ends in 2025, the league “could do itself a favor by negotiating more control over when and where its Finals games are scheduled” (POST FROM WASHINGTON, 10/19).
