The WNBA Finals got off to its best start in the ratings in 23 years.
Sunday’s Liberty-Aces WNBA Finals Game 1 averaged a 0.45 rating and 729,000 viewers on ABC, marking the largest audience for Game 1 of the Finals since 2000 — when Comets-Liberty averaged 872,000 on Lifetime. The previous high over that span was 594,000 for Sparks-Lynx in 2016.
Not counting the single-elimination WNBA title game in 1997 (Liberty-Comets: 2.85M), only three other Finals opened with a larger audience: the aforementioned 2000 series, Comets-Liberty on Lifetime in 1999 (925K) and Comets-Mercury in 1998, which averaged 1.07 million across ESPN and Lifetime.
Game 1 also delivered the largest Finals audience on an NFL Sunday since Sparks-Shock Game 2 on ABC in 2003 (1.28M), the first time the event went head-to-head with the NFL.
As is to be expected given the NFL competition, Game 1 was not the most-watched of the WNBA season, trailing a Wings-Sparks regular season game on June 25 (733K) and the WNBA All-Star Game, which aired in primetime on ABC (850K). It was the 12th WNBA window to average at least 600,000 viewers this season, compared to last year’s total of seven.
The Aces’ comfortable win, which peaked with 885,000 viewers from 4:30-4:45 PM ET, increased 41% in ratings and 31% in viewership from their Game 1 win over Connecticut last year (0.32, 555K).
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