The WNBA keeps finding new fans to watch its TV product.
Heading into the back half of the season, viewership for the WNBA is up 12% year over year, buoyed by Nielsen Big Data (like many other leagues), new TV partners in NBC and USA Network and the staying power of Caitlin Clark. The league’s games are averaging 742,000 viewers across all media partners. Meanwhile, more than 73 million people in the U.S. have watched WNBA games so far this season, the highest figure on record at the break.
NBC has had just four games thus far in its return to the WNBA for the first time since 2002. The network joined USA Network as partners in the first year of a new media-rights pact. Fans finding games on NBC and USA is important for the league, as those networks will carry the WNBA Finals this season (NBC with Games 1 and 4, USA with Games 2, 3 and 5-7).
Prime Video is having its WNBA games measured by Nielsen for the first time this season, and like other properties in the Amazon portfolio, the platform is delivering an audience quite younger than linear TV — nearly six years younger than those watching the WNBA on linear channels (57.0 vs. 62.8).
ION, which carries the bulk of WNBA tonnage with its weekly Friday night doubleheader, is down this season, but it back-loaded its schedule with four Indiana Fever games, including one against the Dallas Wings and Paige Bueckers.
All eyes (still) on Caitlin
The WNBA saw 29 games average over 1 million viewers prior to the All-Star break, setting a league record. The seven most-watched games this season have all involved the Fever.
Leading the way among all games was a July 12 Fever contest against the Las Vegas Aces with 2.64 million viewers on NBC. That’s the third-best WNBA audience for any WNBA telecast (playoffs, All-Star or otherwise) during the last quarter century.
USA even placed four games over 1 million viewers. That included the first WNBA regular-season game on cable TV with a 10pm ET tipoff eclipsing the mark.
