The arrival of Caitlin Clark in the WNBA clearly put the spotlight on the women's league. Her Draft and her first game in the Fever colors had also achieved historic audiences.
But this also applies to the first part of the season as a whole. In 2024, Broadcasters have significantly increased audience ratings of the previous season. No less than 1.2 million viewers, on average, gather on ESPN and ABC. An audience that has almost tripled compared to last year.
As for CBS, the audiences have doubled compared to last season with also 1.2 million viewers on average on the five games broadcast. For its part, ION which broadcasts the Friday evening has more than doubled its audience to reach 579,000 spectators against 272,000, last season. The progression is even more significant for NBA TV, increased from 51,000 spectators in 2023 to 214,000 spectators on average in 2024.
Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese draw the most people
The WNBA even recorded the third best audience in its history during the All-Star Game, which brought together 3.44 million viewers. As a reminder, before the start of this season, the last game with more than a million viewers dated back to 2008, this season 18 events (Draft and All-Star Game, included) have exceeded this symbolic bar.
Never before have so many matches exceeded the million viewer mark, the previous record dates back to 1998 with 15 matches exceeding the million mark. If the craze does not stop at Caitlin Clark, we still note that she is present on the field for 16 of the 18 best audiences of the season.
The Sky rookie and queen of the double-double, Angel Reese is also one of the reasons for this record growth. It is thus involved in the four biggest audiences of the season, namely the All-Star Game, the Draft and its two games against its rival the Fever.
All that remains is to see whether the audience figures will continue in this vein despite the break caused by the Olympic Games…
