WNBA playoffs ratings up 142% compared to last season, ESPN says

The WNBA playoffs are posting monster ratings, and it’s probably not just the Caitlin Clark effect.

Ahead of Game 1 of the WNBA Finals Thursday, ESPN released a collection of ratings numbers showing a significant spike in viewership for the league. Across 17 playoff games aired on the ESPN family of networks, the WNBA has seen an average of 970,000 viewers, a 142% increase from last season.

The numbers represent the highest viewership since the WNBA’s first season in 1997.

It has been very easy to cite Caitlin Clark for the WNBA’s jump in ratings this season, but not so much in the WNBA playoffs.

Granted, the playoff games Clark played for the Indiana Fever were both record-breakers, with Game 2 attracting an unprecedented audience of 2.5 million. However, ESPN notes the next round — the semifinals featuring the league’s top four regular-season teams in the New York Liberty, Minnesota Lynx, Connecticut Sun and Las Vegas Aces — combined to average 850,000 viewers.

That is reportedly a 99% increase from last season’s semifinals, which is a number any league in the industry would kill for. Caitlin Clark played in none of those games, though she could at least be credited with helping build an audience the league then partially retained.

The semifinals saw the Liberty break through the Aces after losing to them in the 2023 WNBA Finals and the Lynx outlast the Sun in a five-game series. Game 1 between the Liberty and Lynx is scheduled 8 p.m. ET, with the Liberty sitting as -275 favorites for the game at BetMGM.