Sunday’s Recreation 5 of the WNBA Finals did blowout viewership numbers with the championship collection’ highest ranking because it was aired on NBC within the 90s.
ESPN introduced on Tuesday that 2.2 million viewers tuned in on common Sunday evening with viewership peaking at 3.3 million for the winner-take-all recreation between the New York Liberty and Minnesota Lynx. New York received in extra time to assert the franchise’s first championship.
Per ESPN, that represents a 142% viewership improve over final season’s Recreation 4 clincher for the Las Vegas Aces over the Liberty. Per Entrance Workplace Sports activities, it is the highest-rated WNBA Finals recreation because the decisive Recreation 3 in 1999 between the Liberty and Houston Comets that aired on NBC and drew 3.25 million viewers.
Recreation 1 of the Lynx-Liberty collection drew 1.14 million viewers, and rankings steadily elevated every recreation by way of Sunday’s Recreation 5. Per FOS, the rankings dwarf these of the 2023 WNBA Finals, which had been beforehand the most-watched in a long time. Not one of the 2023 Finals video games drew 1 million viewers, with common viewership peaking within the decisive Recreation 4 at 889,000.
How will rankings spike impression CBA talks?
The Finals rankings cap a 12 months of explosive development for the WNBA fueled partly by the Caitlin Clark phenomenon. The Indiana Fever rookie who grew to become a sensation in faculty at Iowa sparked unprecedented curiosity within the league and contributed considerably to its development this season.
Indiana’s Recreation 2 first-round playoff matchup in opposition to the Connecticut Solar in September drew a mean of two.54 million viewers and peaked at 3.5 million. It marked the largest-ever viewers for a WNBA recreation on cable.
However the playoff rankings by way of the Finals continued to show that the league’s development is not dependent strictly on Clark. Clark’s Fever have not performed since being eradicated in that Recreation 2 by the Solar, and viewers continued to indicate up in breakout numbers by way of the tip of the postseason.
The spike in curiosity and the cash that that curiosity generates has contributed to a shifting monetary environment that prompted the WNBPA to choose out of its collective bargaining settlement with the league on Monday. The WNBA lately introduced growth franchises in Portland, Toronto and the Bay Space in California and inked a brand new media rights deal price roughly $200 million yearly, a rise over its earlier deal valued at roughly $60 million per season.
The WNBPA will certainly level to the league’s postseason rankings spike because it makes its case in negotiations for a bigger share of the pie.
