{"id":196541,"date":"2025-10-08T03:33:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T03:33:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/196541\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T03:33:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T03:33:09","slug":"wnba-finals-draw-most-viewers-for-a-game-1-since-the-leagues-inaugural-season-winnipeg-free-press","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/196541\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBA Finals draw most viewers for a Game 1 since the league\u2019s inaugural season \u2013 Winnipeg Free Press"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>LAS VEGAS (AP) \u2014 The opening game of the WNBA Finals was the most watched Game 1 since the league\u2019s inaugural season.<\/p>\n<p>An average of 1.9 million viewers watched Las Vegas edge Phoenix 89-86 on Friday night, according to ESPN. That was up 62% from last season\u2019s matchup of New York and Minnesota.<\/p>\n<p>The game peaked with 2.5 million viewers.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/6ef24dd232547a177ee5bdd04a6f751915ca142835371416ba0cde5260dce0bd.jpg\" data-pswp- data-pswp-width=\"1024\" data-pswp-height=\"682\"><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/6ef24dd232547a177ee5bdd04a6f751915ca142835371416ba0cde5260dce0bd.jpg\" alt=\"Las Vegas Aces guard Chelsea Gray leaves the court after Game 1 of the WNBA basketball finals against the Phoenix Mercury, Friday, Oct. 3, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo\/John Locher)\"\/><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/a><br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLas Vegas Aces guard Chelsea Gray leaves the court after Game 1 of the WNBA basketball finals against the Phoenix Mercury, Friday, Oct. 3, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo\/John Locher)<\/p>\n<p>Only the 1997 championship, which was a winner-take-all Game 1 had more people watching.<\/p>\n<p>Game 2 ratings weren\u2019t yet available.<\/p>\n<p>___<\/p>\n<p>AP WNBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/wnba-basketball<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS (AP) \u2014 The opening game of the WNBA Finals was the most watched Game 1 since&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196542,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-196541","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wnba","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-sports","11":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196541","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=196541"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/196541\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196542"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=196541"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=196541"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=196541"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}