The WNBA Draft blew past its prior audience record on Monday night, with ESPN delivering 2.45 million viewers for the prime-time telecast, reports SBJ's Austin Karp. That’s more than 4x the previous record of 601,000 set in 2004 (when Diana Taurasi came into the league). The WNBA Draft audience is up 328% from last year’s figure of 527,000 (the second-best WNBA Draft on record).
But beyond the draft, Monday night was the most-watched WNBA event yet for ESPN, which began airing games in 2003. It tops any regular-season or playoff game on ABC or ESPN. The network’s prior record for a regular-season matchup was Phoenix Mercury-Connecticut Sun on May 22 (1.43 million on ABC). The prior playoff record was Phoenix Mercury-Houston Comets in the WNBA Finals in 1998 (the deciding Game 3 on ESPN with 1.37 million). NBC back in 1997 drew around 4 million viewers for its first WNBA game (games were on Lifetime and Oxygen in Year 1 in 1996).
The WNBA Draft audience remains well below the most recent NFL Draft (11.3 million for the first round on ABC/ESPN/NFL Network) and NBA Draft (3.74 million on ABC/ESPN), but it has passed the most recent MLB Draft (744,000 viewers on ESPN/MLB Network) and NHL Draft (681,000 on ESPN).
For another recent comparison, the WNBA Draft was just ahead of the 2.12 million viewers that Arsenal-Manchester City drew on NBC/Peacock on March 31, which is a record for any Premier League game on U.S. airwaves.
For more on women's basketball, ESPN’s Ryan Ruocco talked to Karp about its meteoric growth for this week's SBJ Media newsletter.
