WNBA Finals Game 5 does blowout ratings, adding further intrigue to upcoming CBA talks

Sunday’s Game 5 of the WNBA Finals did blowout viewership numbers with the championship series’ highest rating since it was aired on NBC in the 90s.

ESPN announced on Tuesday that 2.2 million viewers tuned in on average Sunday night with viewership peaking at 3.3 million for the winner-take-all game between the New York Liberty and Minnesota Lynx. New York won in overtime to claim the franchise’s first championship.

Per ESPN, that represents a 142% viewership increase over last season’s Game 4 clincher for the Las Vegas Aces over the Liberty. Per Front Office Sports, it’s the highest-rated WNBA Finals game since the decisive Game 3 in 1999 between the Liberty and Houston Comets that aired on NBC and drew 3.25 million viewers.

Game 1 of the Lynx-Liberty series drew 1.14 million viewers, and ratings steadily increased each game through Sunday’s Game 5. Per FOS, the ratings dwarf those of the 2023 WNBA Finals, which were previously the most-watched in decades. None of the 2023 Finals games drew 1 million viewers, with average viewership peaking in the decisive Game 4 at 889,000.

How will ratings spike impact CBA talks?

The Finals ratings cap a year of explosive growth for the WNBA fueled in part by the Caitlin Clark phenomenon. The Indiana Fever rookie who became a sensation in college at Iowa sparked unprecedented interest in the league and contributed significantly to its growth this season.

Indiana’s Game 2 against the Connecticut Sun in September drew an average of 2.54 million viewers and peaked at 3.5 million. It marked the largest-ever audience for a WNBA game on cable.

But the playoff ratings through the Finals continued to demonstrate that the league’s growth isn’t dependent strictly on Clark. Clark’s Fever haven’t played since being eliminated in that Game 2 by the Sun, and viewers continued to show up in breakout numbers through the end of the postseason.

The spike in interest and the money that that interest generates has contributed to a shifting financial atmosphere that prompted the WNBPA to opt out of its collective bargaining agreement with the league on Monday. The WNBA recently announced expansion franchises in Portland, Toronto and the Bay Area in California and inked a new media rights deal worth roughly $200 million annually, an increase over its previous deal valued at roughly $60 million per season.

The WNBPA will surely point to the league’s postseason ratings spike as it makes its case in negotiations for a larger share of the pie.