{"id":944165,"date":"2026-10-24T06:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-10-24T06:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/944165\/"},"modified":"2026-10-24T06:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-10-24T06:06:09","slug":"wnba-finals-sets-another-viewership-mark-in-rescheduled-game-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/944165\/","title":{"rendered":"WNBA Finals sets another viewership mark in rescheduled Game 3"},"content":{"rendered":"

The WNBA Finals set another<\/a> viewership mark in Game 3.<\/p>\n

Wednesday\u2019s Valkyries-Dream WNBA Finals Game 3 averaged 1.71 million viewers, combining a Nielsen-measured linear audience on USA Network and CNBC with an Adobe Analytics-measured streaming audience on Peacock \u2014 marking the largest audience for Game 3 of the Finals since the winner-take-all Liberty-Comets on NBC in 1999 (3.25M).<\/p>\n

It also ranks as the third-most watched WNBA Finals game ever on cable, behind the winner-take-all Lynx-Liberty Game 5 on ESPN in 2024 (2.15M) and last year\u2019s Mercury-Aces Game 1 (1.86M). Across all networks, it delivered the ninth-largest Finals audience in the history of the event, with two of the series\u2019 first three games ranking in the top ten.<\/p>\n

(Note that out-of-home viewing was not included in Nielsen estimates until 2020 or fully accounted for until 2025, that this is only in the second year of a new Nielsen methodology integrating \u201cBig Data\u201d from smart TVs, set-top boxes and first party data with its traditional panel, and that Nielsen has recently tweaked its measurement to better account for co-viewing of games.)<\/p>\n

Atlanta\u2019s blowout win increased 31% from last year\u2019s Aces-Mercury Game 3 on ESPN (1.30M).<\/p>\n

Game 3 was the first of the WNBA Finals that did not face football competition. Game 1 aired on a college football Saturday and Game 2 opposite NFL \u201cMonday Night Football.\u201d Game 3 was originally scheduled to air opposite NFL \u201cThursday Night Football,\u201d but was moved up a day to ensure the Dream could play at State Farm Arena in Atlanta, which was occupied Thursday by a Sombr concert.<\/p>\n

The Sombr shuffle put Game 3 in competition with the first full night of the NBA season. ESPN\u2019s competing Timberwolves-Heat game averaged 2.52 million.<\/p>\n

Game 3 was the 12th-straight WNBA Finals game to average a seven-figure audience (2024-present), after the previous 80 had failed to hit the million viewer mark (2003-23). More Finals games have topped the million mark in the past three seasons than in all prior seasons combined (10). (Part of that is owed to the short length of the WNBA Finals in the league\u2019s early days; series were best-of-three until 2005).<\/p>\n

To put the numbers in perspective, Atlanta\u2019s previous WNBA Finals Game 3 \u2014 a sweep-clinching loss to Minnesota in 2013 \u2014 averaged 321,000 viewers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The WNBA Finals set another viewership mark in Game 3. Wednesday\u2019s Valkyries-Dream WNBA Finals Game 3 averaged 1.71…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":944166,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630,323203,247431,95434],"class_list":["post-944165","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-wnba","tag-wnba-finals-ratings","tag-wnba-on-usa","tag-wnba-ratings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944165","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=944165"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/944165\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/944166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=944165"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=944165"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=944165"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}