The WNBA just posted a number nobody in the league office thought they'd see again. Indiana Fever at Chicago Sky averaged 3.31 million viewers on NBC and peaked at 3.82 million, making it the most-watched regular-season game since the league's very first weekend of existence back in June 1997.
NBC announced that Sunday's Indiana Fever at Chicago Sky game averaged 3.31 million viewers, peaking at 3.82 million. It's the most-watched regular-season game since the WNBA's opening weekend of the league's inaugural 1997 season.
To put that in perspective, this broadcast only trails three telecasts in WNBA history: the two 1997 opening-weekend games on NBC (Liberty-Sparks at 5.04 million and Sting-Mercury at 3.59 million) and the 2024 All-Star Game on ABC. Everything else in nearly three decades of the league's existence, including every Finals game, sits below what Sunday's Fever-Sky game just did in the regular season.
It's the latest data point in what's been a wild season of ratings milestones tied to Caitlin Clark and the Fever. Indiana games have already set viewership records on Amazon Prime, ION, USA Network and CBS this year, and Clark has now been part of 3 of the 6 most-watched WNBA broadcasts ever recorded. The league's TV numbers have essentially been rewritten from the ground up since she arrived.
JUST IN: NBC just announced that Fever-Sky was the most-watched regular season game since the opening weekend of the WNBA’s inaugural season in 1997. Averaging 3.31M viewers, and peaking at 3.82M. 😳
None of this happens without the eyeballs actually showing up for competitive basketball, and Fever-Sky has become appointment viewing every time it's on national TV. Whatever narrative attaches to a given matchup, the audience keeps arriving in numbers the league hasn't seen since Rebecca Lobo and the Liberty were introducing America to the WNBA in the first place.
The bigger question for the league now is whether this is a ceiling or a new baseline. NBC, ABC and ESPN are all mid-negotiation on how much national inventory to hand the WNBA going forward, and numbers like these are exactly the kind of leverage that turns into bigger rights fees and more marquee windows down the line.