Sports Ratings Tracker

Last Tuesday’s Wings-Liberty WNBA regular season game averaged 954,000 viewers on ESPN, marking the third-largest audience of the season on cable or streaming — with the top three coming within four days.

As previously noted, the top two games both involved the Fever — a Sunday night matchup with the Aces on ESPN (1.55M) and Caitlin Clark’s return to the lineup last Wednesday against the Sparks on USA (1.04M).

Indiana also played last Thursday night against the Mercury in a game that averaged 436,000 on Amazon Prime Video. Clark did not play. Storm-Dream led-in with 313,000.

Prime Video is averaging 439,000 viewers for WNBA games this season. The recent Commissioner’s Cup Final between the Aces and Liberty averaged 403,000 on the streamer.

Last Thursday’s Dream-Fever WNBA regular season game averaged 816,000 viewers on Amazon Prime Video, the largest WNBA audience yet for the streamer, which is in its first season of carrying Nielsen-rated games.

Atlanta’s win increased 19% from the season’s previous matchup between the teams — and their stars Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese — which also aired on Prime Video (686K). The teams played again this past weekend on ABC, figures for which will be available Wednesday.

The previous week, the Fever’s matchup against the Sky averaged 736,000 on Prime, part of a doubleheader that averaged 552,000.

Prime Video is now averaging 504,000 viewers for WNBA games this season, and outpacing the linear networks by 33 percent in adults 18-34, and 9% by adults 18-49.

Last Thursday’s Dream-Fever WNBA regular season game, the season’s first meeting between Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, averaged 686,000 viewers on Prime Video — the most-watched game of the season on the streamer, but also the least-watched matchup of Clark and Reese (6 total games).

The collegiate rivals only played each other once last season, and four times the previous year. All of those games averaged at least one million.

The full Prime doubleheader averaged 545,000, and the streamer is averaging 446,000 for the season — up slightly from the average for games on linear cable this season (+1%).

As is typical for sports on streaming services, Prime is averaging a younger audience, with a median age of 55.6 — compared to 62.6 for the linear networks. (Note that NBC’s presumably younger-skewing streaming audience is not tracked by Nielsen.)

Amazon Prime Video averaged 549,000 viewers for its May 28 WNBA doubleheader, up considerably from the previous week — when coverage aired opposite the NBA conference finals (161K) — and also up from the streamer’s season debut May 14 (529K).

The doubleheader included Prime’s first Nielsen-rated game involving Caitlin Clark, as the Fever’s matchup against the Valkyries averaged 662,000.

The Fever-Valkyries game averaged 115,000 viewers among adults 18-34, the second-most watched game of the season on any network in that demo. (Note that NBC’s presumably younger-skewing streaming viewership is not tracked by Nielsen.)

The debut of Amazon Prime Video’s new WNBA package — Lynx-Wings and Liberty-Fire on May 14 — averaged 529,000 viewers. Prime aired WNBA games prior to this season, but those were simulcasts of local feeds and were not Nielsen-rated.

Compared to last year’s WNBA average on cable, viewership for the Prime doubleheader increased 26%, outside the range that would be explained by Nielsen methodological changes.

As is commonplace for sporting events on streaming services, the gains were particularly pronounced in the young adult demographics, with viewership up triple-digits in adults 18-34 (+156%), 18-49 (+147%) and 25-54 (+106%). Prime had a median age of 53.4 for its two games, compared to 62.3 for WNBA games on linear television last season.