{"id":207765,"date":"2025-10-08T00:20:23","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T00:20:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/207765\/"},"modified":"2025-10-08T00:20:23","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T00:20:23","slug":"aja-wilson-aces-vs-mercury-wnba-finals-game-1-was-most-watched-since-1997","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/207765\/","title":{"rendered":"A’ja Wilson, Aces vs. Mercury WNBA Finals Game 1 Was Most-Watched Since 1997"},"content":{"rendered":"

Game 1 of this year’s WNBA Finals, which featured WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson and the Las Vegas Aces defeating the Phoenix Mercury 89-86 last Friday, was the most-watched Game 1 of the league’s championship round since 1997.<\/p>\n

The 1997 season was the league’s inaugural campaign. That marked the only season that the WNBA Finals was just one game. The Houston Comets defeated the New York Liberty 65-51, and the matchup averaged 2.85 million viewers<\/a>, per Sports Media Watch.<\/p>\n

Game 1 of this year’s Finals was an instant classic. Wilson posted yet another double-double (21 points, 10 rebounds) while Dana Evans (21 points) and Jewell Loyd (18 points) dominated off the bench. Evans was particularly outstanding, hitting 5-of-6 three-pointers, including three in the fourth quarter.<\/p>\n

The back-and-forth matchup went down to the final possession after the Aces took an 89-86 lead following two Jackie Young free throws. Satou Sabally had a contested look from three to tie the game, but it was off the mark.<\/p>\n

Las Vegas followed that effort up with a 91-78 win in Game 2. Young led the scoring effort with 32 points, while Wilson posted 28 points and 14 rebounds.<\/p>\n

This year marks the first time the WNBA Finals is a best-of-seven series, so the Aces need two more wins to secure their third championship.<\/p>\n

Game 3 will take place in Phoenix on Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Game 1 of this year’s WNBA Finals, which featured WNBA MVP A’ja Wilson and the Las Vegas Aces…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":207766,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[73],"tags":[99,434],"class_list":["post-207765","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207765","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=207765"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/207765\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/207766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=207765"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=207765"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=207765"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}