The WNBA is heading into its summer break riding a stunning viewership high, with Saturday’s All-Star Game smashing records to a historic degree.
Team WNBA’s win over Team USA averaged 3.44 million viewers on ABC, nearly two and a half times the previous record for an All-Star Game (1.44 million, 2003) and quadrupling the viewership for last year’s game on ABC (850,000).
The 2024 All-Star Game ranks as the third-most-watched WNBA game ever, behind just two games on the league’s debut weekend in 1997 (5.04 million for Liberty-Sparks, 3.59 million for Sting-Mercury, both airing on NBC).
The game puts an exclamation point on a dynamic first half of the season for the WNBA. The league tallied 17 audiences of at least a million viewers including the All-Star Game, the most-ever for any season. Before this year, the league’s last audience of over one million viewers came back in 1998.
Furthermore, viewership for the WNBA All-Star Game bucked a trend of declining All-Star viewership across all sports. The MLB All-Star Game last week increased from 2023 but was still the second-least-watched Midsummer Classic ever. The same was true for the NBA All-Star Game in February: up from last year, second-least-watched ever. This year’s NFL’s Pro Bowl and the NHL All-Star Game declined from last year and were the second-least-watched ever.
But the WNBA All-Star Game didn’t just increase from last year, it obliterated its previous record. It’s an incredible departure from the narrative that has shaped every other All-Star Game in recent years and speaks to the league’s incredible growth over just a couple of months in 2024.
[Data via Sports Media Watch]
About Joe Lucia
I hate your favorite team. I also sort of hate most of my favorite teams.