WNBA draws high play-off viewership, expands 2025 format

The Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA), the elite US women’s basketball competition, has in its 2024 post-season playoffs drawn the highest viewership ratings in 25 years.

Aired on Disney-owned sports broadcasting giant ESPN, the first 17 games of the 2024 playoffs, which saw the initial eight teams whittled down to two, averaged 970,000 viewers, more than double the average in the 2023 season and the highest average across the first round and semi-finals of the playoffs since 1997, the WNBA’s inaugural campaign.

Notably, this came despite the Indiana Fever and rookie star Caitlin Clark being knocked out in the first round.

Clark has been the catalyst for strong viewership league-wide this year as her rivalry with Chicago Sky rookie Angel Reese spilled over from the college basketball national championship to the league, capturing national attention.

Despite the Fever being knocked out in the first round by the Connecticut Sun, the two semi-final series’ still averaged 850,000 viewers per game, an increase of 99% on the 2023 equivalent games and the most-watched semi-finals since 1999.

Currently, the league’s play-offs begin with four first-round best-of-three series, the winners of which graduate to two best-of-five series, with the final, contested between the remaining two sides, also best-of-five.

The high playoff viewership this year has coincided with WNBA commissioner Cathy Englebert announcing that from 2025 onward, the schedule of both the regular and post-season will change.

The most prominent of these moves is that the finals of the play-offs will now move to a best-of-seven format, as opposed to best-of-five.

Furthermore, the regular season will be expanded from 40 games per team to 44, owing to the introduction of a 13th franchise to the league, the Golden State Valkyries.

With at least two more franchises set to enter the league in the coming years, this fixture expansion could be the first of many for the WNBA, a factor that will have a knock-on effect on the league’s commercial viability, as more games to sell means it will be able to attract even more money in future media rights agreements.

Englebert stated of the move to expand the regular and post-season: “We are seeing incredible demand for WNBA basketball, as reflected in the number of cities pursuing expansion franchises, fans attending games and engaging with our social and digital platforms in record fashion, and game broadcasts and streams being consumed like never before.

“The incredible demand for WNBA basketball makes this the ideal time to increase the regular season to 44 games per team and expand the WNBA Finals to a best-of-seven series.

“These changes will create more opportunities to watch the best players in the world compete at the highest level and give our fans a championship series format that they are accustomed to seeing in other sports.” Sportcal