The WNBA is once again reaching new heights.
The league’s highly anticipated opening day game between the Chicago Sky and Indiana Fever averaged 2.7 million viewers on ABC, marking the most-watched regular season WNBA game since 2000, according to Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch. When accounting for all WNBA telecasts, Saturday’s game pulled in the second-largest audience behind only last year’s WNBA All-Star Game (3.44 million viewers).
The most-watched #WNBA opening weekend EVER on ESPN platforms đź‘Ź
Sky-Fever
🏀 2.5M avg. viewers, 3.1M peak
🏀 Most-watched WNBA game EVER on ESPN platformsAces-Liberty
🏀 1.3M avg. viewers, 1.9M peak pic.twitter.com/cd8Pl3DcpM— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) May 20, 2025
Per ESPN PR, the Fever’s commanding win saw an increase of 115% versus last year’s regular season average on ABC.
Saturday’s game featured two of the league’s biggest stars, Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, renewing a rivalry that dates back to their times in college. After a chippy sequence between the two stars saw Clark issued a flagrant foul, social media and sports media predictably retreated to culture war talking points that have kept the league in mainstream conversation for days.
Those conversations increase interest in the league, but perhaps at the cost of actual basketball analysis. Though, that’s certainly not a problem exclusive to the WNBA.
Either way, the league has to be thrilled that two of its premier talents continue to command a large audience. Prior to last season, the WNBA had not aired a single telecast that averaged over one million viewers. Last year, Clark’s and Reese’s rookie seasons, the WNBA aired dozens of telecasts that surpassed the seven-figure threshold.
To start the season by breaking a 25-year record shows that those audiences were not a flash in the pan, they’re here to stay. Caitlin Clark is a bona fide superstar, and her rivalry with Angel Reese has broad base appeal.
But the WNBA’s success wasn’t limited to just those two on Saturday. Prior to the Sky-Fever game, the Las Vegas Aces and the defending champion New York Liberty averaged 1.3 million viewers on ABC.
Over on Ion, WNBA viewership was up over 100% versus last year’s comparable windows. The network’s Friday night doubleheader, the first of which featured Dallas Wings rookie Paige Bueckers, averaged 612,000 viewers, up 120% versus the 277,000 viewers for last season’s opening doubleheader.
The league’s ability to draw sizeable audiences without Clark displays that much of the WNBA’s growth is organic and not simply limited to one player.
