A record audience for the WNBA Draft dominated the day in sports viewing for Monday, April 15.
Monday’s WNBA Draft, in which Iowa G Caitlin Clark was drafted first overall by the Indiana Fever, averaged 2.45 million viewers on ESPN — marking the largest WNBA audience of any kind in nearly 24 years and up more-than-fourfold over last year’s audience of 572,000.
The telecast, which peaked with 3.09 million viewers, was easily the most-watched sportscast of the day. In addition, its 0.58 rating topped all broadcast network primetime programming and trailed only “WWE Smackdown” for the night.
For more details on the WNBA Draft ratings and Caitlin Clark’s impact on viewership, see the preceding link.
Leading out of the WNBA Draft, a Wild-Kings NHL regular season game placed a distant second with 439,000 viewers — up slightly from Wild-Blackhawks in the same post-WNBA window last year (430K).
There was little else in the way of live sports Monday. USA Network drew 266,000 for an Everton-Chelsea English Premier League match and ESPN2 chipped in a mere 158,000 for live coverage of the Boston Marathon — down sharply from last year on the ESPN flagship (369K). As for the other big Patriot Day event, the Red Sox’ annual morning matchup drew 150,000 on MLB Network, topping the network’s primetime regional window later in the day (111K).
In the deciding game of the NBA G-League Finals, Oklahoma City-Maine averaged just 25,000 on NBA TV — trailing a 1 AM ET re-air of the WNBA Draft hours later (29K).
Monday, April 15 sports ratings
Updated chart:
Original chart below:
