Despite a football-fueled series-low for the clinching game, the WNBA Finals finished with its largest audience in four years.
The four-game Sky-Mercury WNBA Finals averaged 548,000 viewers across ABC, ESPN and ESPN2, marking the largest audience for the event since the five-game Lynx-Sparks series in 2017 (559K). Viewership increased 23% from last year’s three-game sweep (Storm-Aces: 444K) and up 43% from the five-game Mystics-Sun series in 2019 (381K).
WNBA Finals viewership has now increased in consecutive years for the first time since 2005-07.
The last time Phoenix played Chicago in the Finals, 2014, the Mercury’s three-game sweep averaged 634,000. That remains the most-watched WNBA Finals since 2003.
Sunday’s clinching Game 4 was the lowest rated and least-watched game of the series with 0.25 rating and 417,000 viewers on ESPN. The two Sunday afternoon games in the series, both of which aired opposite a full slate of NFL games, were the least-watched — neither averaging 500,000 viewers.
Despite the series-low, Chicago’s comeback win increased 19% in ratings and 34% in viewership from the previous Game 4 in 2019, a Wednesday night game on ESPN2 (0.21, 312K).
Game 3 last Friday night averaged a 0.29 and 524,000 on ESPN2 despite Chicago’s record-setting 36-point margin, the most-watched Finals game on ESPN2 since the deciding Game 5 in 2016 (528K). Ratings fell 15% and viewership 8% from last year’s clinching Game 3 on ESPN (0.34, 570K) but increased a tick and 23% respectively from Game 3 on ABC in 2019 (0.28, 425K).
Overall, the complete WNBA Playoffs averaged 367,000 viewers across the ESPN networks — up 63% from last year (226K) and the league’s most-watched postseason since 2014.
While the postseason hit a seven-year high, it is worth noting that seven of the eight largest audiences this season occurred prior to the playoffs. Game 2 of the Finals delivered the largest audience of the season (789K), but regular season games took up the next seven spots — Storm-Sky in August (755K), Aces-Wings in July (643K), Sky-Mystics (611K) and Aces-Storm (598K) in May, and Mystics-Wings (567K), Aces-Mystics (556K) and Sky-Sparks (533K) in June.
Other than Game 2, which aired on a rare October night with no football or baseball competition, the rest of the top eight aired prior to the start of football season.
WNBA Finals average viewership since ESPN acquired exclusive rights
[Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 10.19, network PR]
