{"id":865450,"date":"2026-08-20T21:58:21","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T21:58:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/865450\/"},"modified":"2026-08-20T21:58:21","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T21:58:21","slug":"espn-airs-its-most-watched-wnba-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/865450\/","title":{"rendered":"ESPN Airs Its Most-Watched WNBA Game"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"elk-a8c2cdc4-9ce0-11f1-a94a-3d251fa286d2\">ESPN delivered the most-watched WNBA game ever on cable as the Atlanta Dream-Indiana Fever matchup averaged 2.6M viewers on Sunday, August 16.<\/p>\n<p>The telecast ranks as the most-watched WNBA regular-season or postseason game ever on cable. The audience was up 178% compared to last year\u2019s ESPN regular season average. The game peaked at 4M viewers from 7:15-7:29 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n<p class=\"vanilla-image-block\" style=\"padding-top:56.25%;\">\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/hBCW7Vpva2RMd2uSFkUWmP.jpg\" alt=\"ESPN data on most watched WNBA game ever on cable\"   loading=\"lazy\" data-new-v2-image=\"true\" data-original-mos=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/hBCW7Vpva2RMd2uSFkUWmP.jpg\" data-pin-media=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/hBCW7Vpva2RMd2uSFkUWmP.jpg\" class=\"rounded-[var(--image--border-radius,0)] pull-rightinline expandable\"\/><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/hBCW7Vpva2RMd2uSFkUWmP.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" class=\"expand-button icon-expand-image icon\" data-url=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/hBCW7Vpva2RMd2uSFkUWmP.jpg\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\" data-hl-processed=\"none\" data-article-category=\"insights\"\/><\/p>\n<p>(Image credit: ESPN)<\/p>\n<p id=\"elk-a8c2d0e4-9ce0-11f1-b4d7-effce02a8fab\">Leading into the game, WNBA Countdown presented by Google Pixel averaged 452K viewers on ESPN, up 33% compared to last year\u2019s ESPN regular season average.<\/p>\n<p><a id=\"elk-seasonal\"\/><\/p>\n<p id=\"elk-a8c2d0e4-9ce0-11f1-b4d7-effce02a8fab-1\">The second game of ESPN\u2019s Sunday doubleheader also delivered a record audience, as the Phoenix Mercury celebrated Diana Taurasi\u2019s jersey retirement. Portland Fire-Phoenix Mercury averaged 1.4M viewers, the most-watched non-Indiana regular-season WNBA game ever on ESPN and up 46% from last year\u2019s ESPN regular-season average.<\/p>\n<p>Through 25 games, the WNBA on ESPN networks is averaging 1.4M viewers, up 16% compared to the comparable point last season.<\/p>\n<p>            You may like<\/p>\n<p class=\"newsletter-form__strapline\">The professional video industry&#8217;s #1 source for news, trends and product and tech information. Sign up below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ESPN delivered the most-watched WNBA game ever on cable as the Atlanta Dream-Indiana Fever matchup averaged 2.6M viewers&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":865451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":["post-865450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865450","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=865450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/865450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/865451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=865450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=865450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=865450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}