Fever-Aces Game 1 sets ABC record for most-watched WNBA playoff game

The Caitlin Clark effect is still alive and well.

Sunday’s Game 1 between Clark’s Indiana Fever and the defending WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces set a viewership record for ABC. The Aces’ win averaged 2.1 million viewers on ABC, peaking at 2.6 million viewers, which is good for the most-watched WNBA playoff game in the network’s history. The audience more than doubled last year’s comparable ABC playoff game, which featured a Clark-less Fever team against the Atlanta Dream. That game averaged 951,000 viewers.

While Game 1 rated as the most-watched WNBA playoff game ever for ABC, Sunday’s audience was smaller than several regular-season games earlier this season. Notably, the Fever’s game against the Chicago Sky in August averaged 3.31 million viewers on NBC. In July, a Fever-Aces regular-season matchup drew 2.64 million viewers on CBS. And last month, Fever-Dream on ESPN earned 2.60 million viewers, marking the most-watched WNBA game in cable television history.

That said, Sunday’s audience is still very impressive. As is usually the case, this ABC window competed directly with the NFL’s Sunday afternoon slate on CBS and Fox. In particular, the game faced competition from a thrilling game between the Baltimore Ravens and Dallas Cowboys on CBS, which ended up as the most-watched international game in NFL history. It also faced golf competition on NBC, which was airing the final day of the Presidents Cup.

In recent years, the NFL competition hasn’t really phased the WNBA playoff audience, which has continued to surge.

Viewership for this year’s WNBA postseason figures to be a bit more volatile, however, as the league adds new streaming partners in both Prime Video and Peacock, and a new cable partner in USA Network. The fragmentation could serve to confuse fans and suppress viewership.

That didn’t happen on Sunday afternoon, however, as broadcast television continues to serve the league very well.