The WNBA playoffs are posting monster ratings, and it’s probably not just the Caitlin Clark effect.
Ahead of Game 1 of the WNBA Finals on Thursday, ESPN released a series of viewing figures showing a significant increase in viewership for the league. Of the 17 playoff games broadcast on the ESPN family of networks, the WNBA saw an average of 970,000 viewers, an increase of 142% from last season.
These numbers represent the highest viewership since the WNBA’s inaugural season in 1997.
It was very easy to cite Caitlin Clark for WNBA ratings boost this seasonbut not so much in the WNBA playoffs.
Certainly, the playoff games Clark played for the Indiana Fever were both record-breaking, with Game 2 attracts an unprecedented audience of 2.5 million. However, ESPN notes that the next round — the semifinals featuring the league’s top four regular-season teams: New York Liberty, Minnesota Lynx, Connecticut Sun and Las Vegas Aces — averaged 850,000 viewers.
This would be a 99% increase from last season’s semi-finals, a figure any league in the industry would kill for. Caitlin Clark didn’t play in any of those games, although she could at least be credited with helping build an audience that the league then partially retained.
The semi-finals saw the Liberty cross the Aces after losing to them in the 2023 WNBA Finals And the Lynx survive the Sun in a five-game series. The first game between Liberty and Lynx is scheduled for 8 p.m. ET, with the Liberty being -275 favorites for the matchup on BetMGM.
