The WNBA’s season-long surge in popularity shows no sign of abating, as the 2024 All-Star Game left the previous ratings record in the dust.
According to Nielsen live-plus-same-day data, Sunday night’s exhibition, which pitted rookie stars Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese against the U.S. women’s national team, averaged 3.44 million viewers on ABC, up 139% versus the previous high-water mark set in 2003 (1.44 million).
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Team WNBA’s 117-109 win now stands as the third most-watched outing in the league’s history, trailing only NBC’s opening-weekend salvo in June 1997, when the New York Liberty and Los Angeles Sparks squared off in front of 5.04 million viewers on a Saturday afternoon, and the following day’s Charlotte Sting-Phoenix Mercury clash (3.59 million).
Sunday night’s All-Star effort marks the 17th time this season that an WNBA broadcast has delivered north of 1 million viewers, which is of particular interest given how out-of-reach the seven-figure tally had been before Clark arrived on the scene. Prior to this season, a WNBA game hadn’t served up 1 million viewers since 2008.
The former Iowa standout has been instrumental in supersizing the league’s TV deliveries; since Clark first suited up for the Indiana Fever back in May, the guard has appeared in 15 of the league’s highest-rated 17 telecasts, including each of the top 10.
The revenge theme proved to be a novel twist on the standard All-Star format—Clark and game MVP Arike Ogunbowale visibly reveled in their opportunity to sock it to the squad of Paris-bound veterans—but viewers were also treated to an actual competition. While their NBA counterparts in February put in the usual show of look-Ma-no-effort during their own All-Star scrimmage, Sunday’s game at times almost gave off a playoff vibe. Case in point: Clark was consistently double-teamed by her Olympian counterparts.
Ogunbowale put up a record high 34 points, edging Team USA’s Breanna Stewart (31) for top honors, while Clark’s 10 assists nearly matched Sue Bird’s 2017 ASG record (11). Among the more established Paris-bound bunch, A’ja Wilson scored 22 points, Diana Taurasi notched 14 and Brittney Griner added 10 from the bench.
In keeping with Disney’s efforts to grow the WNBA audience, this year’s game was the second straight to air in ABC prime. Last year’s broadcast averaged 850,000 viewers; at the time, it earned bragging rights as the league’s most-watched All-Star Game in 16 years.
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