Caitlin Clark and WNBA Have Created Ratings Competition for NBA
We now live in a world where comparing the WNBA to the NBA directly from a viewership standpoint is no longer a laughable proposition, with the most recent returns emphasizing how the gap between the two leagues is indeed closing.
ESPN's first NBA telecasts of the season pulled in an average of 1.6 million viewers, that information per Awful Announcing. This is particularly interesting considering Caitlin Clark's debut with the Indiana Fever, which aired on ESPN 2 and was the first major WNBA telecast on the network for the 2024 season, drew 2.1 million viewers.
Caitlin Clark’s debut had 2.1 million viewers on ESPN 2. We now live in a world where the WNBA can compete with the NBA in viewership, which is crazy. https://t.co/3HNmkCcExY
— Robin Lundberg (@robinlundberg) October 30, 2024
Of course the curiosity factor around Clark's debut and the fact that those NBA games were not actually the first of the regular season can be chalked up as the reason for the disparity in ratings going in the WNBA's favor there.
But the trends show the friendly competition (they are the same entity after all with seasons that don't really overlap) could continue to grow closer over time. To be clear, overall, the difference in viewership still remains heavily in favor of the NBA.
NBA regular season games averaged 1.6 million viewers across TNT, ABC and ESPN during the 2023-2024 season, which does not include games that aired on NBA TV, where the number was at 330,000. Meanwhile, the WNBA regular season averaged 1.19 million viewers across ESPN platforms and 1.1 million on CBS. The overall number fell to 657,000 when factoring in broadcasts on ION and NBA TV. But as you can see, when accounting for broadcast platform, it was not a total blowout.
It must also be noted that contests featuring Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever performed 199% better than other matchups over the course of the season, with those games pulling in an average of 1.19 million viewers regardless of network, via Sports Business Journal. Fever games also often performed better on NBA TV than the NBA did.
When taking the playoffs into account, it is noteworthy that the NBA Playoffs averaged 3.17 million viewers across the first week a season ago, according to Sports Media Watch. While the first round series between Clark's Fever and the Connecticut Sun was at 2.15 million, and that is with Game 1 taking place in the middle of an NFL Sunday and the series only lasting two games.
Other tentpole events also produced much bigger numbers than in previous years for the WNBA. The WNBA Draft drew 2.45 million viewers, compared to the 4.41 million for the NBA. While the WNBA All-Star Game had an audience of 3.44 million to the NBA's 5.5 million.
Despite record ratings for the New York Liberty's win over the Minnesota Lynx, the WNBA Finals still have a long way to go to catch up with its NBA counterpart. Game 5 in the WNBA had an average of 2.2 million viewers, and that was head-to-head with Sunday Night Football and the MLB Playoffs. However, the NBA registered 11.3 million across the Finals for the Boston Celtics win over the Dallas Mavericks, so the comparison between the two leagues is not yet even close to a contest when it comes to the championship series.
Still, NBA numbers are trending downward thus far this season, while everything about the WNBA was up in 2024. The WNBA Playoffs were up 142%, and that's without including the rise of the Finals and considering the Fever were eliminated early.
So, while there remains a long way to go for the WNBA to actually be on even footing with the NBA, it's still impressive to see the head-to-head comparison being tight in certain situations.
And it remains feasible the competition will continue to get closer, given the upward growth of the WNBA as a whole, and since it was just Clark's rookie season.
Robin Lundberg is a media veteran and hoops head who has spent the bulk of his career with iconic brands like Sports Illustrated and ESPN. His insights have also been featured on platforms such as Fox and CNN and he can currently be heard hosting shows for Sirius XM and on his burgeoning YouTube show. And now he brings his basketball expertise to Women's Fastbreak on SI!