The 2025 WNBA Finals between the Las Vegas Aces and Phoenix Mercury averaged 1.5 million viewers across four games, marking the second-most-watched Finals series on ESPN since the network acquired exclusive postseason rights in 2003.<\/p>\n
The viewership total trails only the 1.6 million average from the 2024 Finals. The numbers demonstrate the league’s continued growth despite questions about sustaining momentum from its historic 2024 campaign.<\/p>\n
The series concluded in a four-game sweep by A’ja Wilson and the Aces over the Mercury. The lopsided outcome prevented the league from fully capitalizing on its first best-of-seven playoff series format.<\/p>\n
Last year’s decisive Game 5 between the New York Liberty and Minnesota Lynx drew 2.15 million viewers, the most-watched WNBA Finals game of the 2000s. The absence of a similar elimination game likely impacted overall series viewership.<\/p>\n
The 2025 Finals viewership doubled the 728,000 average from 2023 when the Aces defeated the Liberty in four games. The entire postseason averaged 1.2 million viewers, up 5% from last year despite Caitlin Clark’s absence from the playoffs.<\/p>\n
Nielsen’s methodology change to the Big Data + Panel model earlier this year has boosted viewership numbers across all sports. The inclusion of out-of-home viewership since 2020 also contributes to higher totals.<\/p>\n
The WNBA now faces a crucial offseason period as the league and its players’ union must reach a new collective bargaining agreement by October 31 or agree to extend negotiations to avoid a work stoppage.<\/p>\n
Game 1 on ESPN led all Finals broadcasts with 1.9 million viewers. Games 2 through 4 drew between 1.2 and 1.4 million viewers across ESPN and ABC.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The 2025 WNBA Finals between the Las Vegas Aces and Phoenix Mercury averaged 1.5 million viewers across four…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":153330,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,12274,82,630,104186],"class_list":["post-215085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-realgm-wiretap","tag-sports","tag-wnba","tag-wnba-finals-ratings-average-15-million-viewers-second-highest-since-2003"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215085","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=215085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/153330"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=215085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=215085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=215085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}