Sports Ratings Tracker

CBS averaged a 1.0 rating and 1.57 million viewers for Sparks-Fever last Saturday night and a 0.9 and 1.53 million for Aces-Sky the following day, marking the fourth and fifth-largest audiences of the WNBA season, and the top two that did not feature Fever G Caitlin Clark.

In a first, four WNBA games aired on a single broadcast network over the same weekend. CBS also averaged a 0.7 and 1.26 million for Lynx-Wings on Sunday, with Mercury-Tempo on Saturday bringing up the rear at 798,000.

On ESPN, Liberty-Valkyries averaged 743,000 in the second edition of “Women’s Sports Sundays.”

Last Saturday’s Fever-Fire WNBA regular season game averaged a 0.8 rating and nearly 1.3 million viewers on CBS, marking the least-watched Fever game on the network since Caitlin Clark was drafted (six total), including two primetime games last season that she missed due to injury. (Note that the five previous games pit Indiana against the New York or Chicago, rather than expansion Portland.)

Keep in mind the game aired directly opposite Game 7 of the NBA Western Conference Finals on NBC, which averaged a combined audience of 15.9 million across Nielsen and Adobe Analytics.

Indiana’s loss, which saw Clark score a season-low six points, was still the most-watched of the three WNBA games on CBS this season. In the same primetime window a week earlier, Sparks-Aces averaged 1.05 million. Earlier that day, Sky-Lynx drew 1.01 million.

The game was also the most-watched of the weekend in the WNBA. NBC averaged 984,000 for Aces-Valkyries on Sunday afternoon across Nielsen and Adobe Analytics.

WNBA regular season games on CBS averaged 1.17 million viewers, up 6% from last year’s eight-game slate and the network’s most-watched season. The network’s season finale, Liberty-Dream on Saturday, averaged 595,000.

Saturday’s Liberty-Lynx WNBA Finals rematch averaged 793,000 viewers on CBS, up 25% from Lynx-Mystics on the network the same weekend last year. Viewership trailed the previous matchup between the teams a week earlier on ABC (977K).

CBS is averaging 1.23 million viewers for WNBA games this season, up 8% from a year ago.

Sans Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, Saturday’s primetime Sky-Fever WNBA regular season game averaged a 0.8 rating and 1.31 million viewers on CBS — down from the network’s previous primetime meeting between the teams, which featured Reese but not Clark (1.92M).

Indiana’s win was the least-watched meeting of the Sky and Fever in the two years since Clark and Reese have been in the league.

In other WNBA action, Saturday’s Lynx-Liberty WNBA Finals rematch averaged 977,000 on ABC, and Tuesday’s Fever-Wings game on ESPN averaged 1.3 million on ESPN — the latter ranking as the third-most watched WNBA game on ESPN this season.

Sunday’s Storm-Liberty WNBA regular season game averaged 987,000 viewers on CBS, down about half from Liberty-Fever last year (1.87M). Despite the big drop, CBS is still averaging more viewers this season than last, as its five-game average of 1.38 million is up slightly from a four-game average of 1.37 million a year ago.

Keep in mind CBS has aired only one Caitlin Clark game this season, compared to two at the same point last year.

CBS on Father’s Day averaged 939,000 viewers for a Sun-Sky WNBA regular season game, unsurprisingly down by more than half compared to Sky-Fever a year ago (2.25M). The previous day on June 14, CBS drew 702,000 for Sparks-Lynx, up 5% from Sun-Wings a year ago (671K).

Despite the absence of Caitlin Clark, Saturday’s primetime Fever-Sky WNBA regular season game averaged 1.92 million viewers on CBS — trailing only Game 5 of last year’s WNBA Finals as the most-watched game without Clark in the lineup since 2001.

For more on the numbers, see this article.

Saturday’s Liberty-Fever WNBA regular season game averaged 2.22 million viewers on CBS, the network’s second-largest WNBA audience behind a Sky-Fever game last year (2.25M).

New York’s win, which peaked with 3.24 million, delivered the eighth-largest WNBA audience since 2001 (sixth-largest if one excludes last year’s WNBA Draft and All-Star Game).