2024 WNBA All Star Game Was the Most-Watched EVER!
And the hits keep coming. The women’s basketball league is seeing some insane growth from live audience attendance to at home viewership. Case in point, the 2024 WNBA All Star Game was the Most-Watched EVER! And it happened before a sold out crowd of 16,407.
The league reports that according to Nielsen, the game averaged 3.4 million. And went on to peak with 4.1 million viewers. This is big news since a WNBA game had not delivered more than 1 million viewers in the past 16 years. Plus, this is also the 17th WNBA game this year with viewership of more than 1 million, with Clark appearing in 15 of those games.
Furthermore, a few other stats from last Saturday’s All Star Game on ABC:
- The most watched WNBA All Star Game
- 3rd most-viewed WNBA event ever (in 1997, the first game in league history to be televised hit 5.04 million)
- The largest WNBA audience EVER on ESPN platforms
- Largest WNBA Countdown ever
Therefore, this season keeps being a record breaking one. And it is thanks to new stars, a new rivalry and basketball fans discovering new players. During the ASG, Caitlin Clark set a rookie record in assists; Angel Reese showcased a dominant double double and Arike Ogunbowale became a new fan favorite; almost single-handedly destroying Team USA.
Nevertheless, this year’s All Star festivities for the women is ticking upwards just like the men’s ASG. Although, the NBA experienced a slight decline and decrease in viewership during the regular season. The NBA’s All Star viewership went in the other direction. As Statista mentions,
“The NBA All-Star game is an annual basketball exhibition game contested between the Eastern Conference and Western Conference All-Stars. The 24 players featured in the game are selected through a voting process among fans, players, and media. The 2024 All-Star game was watched by 5.5 million viewers, an increase of nearly 20 percent from the 4.6 million viewers who tuned into the previous year’s game.”
2024 WNBA All Star Game Was the Most-Watched EVER!
But, the increase is still not giving the powers that be much to celebrate about. The NBA ASG viewership figure marked the second lowest in history, trailing only the previous year’s numbers. This shows that the ASG format needs to be changed, innovated or player incentivized in order to present a better product to fans.
For the WNBA, this is not seeming to be a problem. With many fans enjoying the game and willing to proudly say so online. Additionally, while the NBA All Star Game experienced a 20% increase, the WNBA’s All Star Game shot up 305%.
Julie Sobieski, ESPN senior vice president of league programming and acquisitions spoke on the WNBA’s growth. She mentions, “This weekend’s extraordinary viewership underscores women’s sports’ exponential growth and ESPN is proud to showcase this incredible league and its exceptional athletes on such a grand stage.”
But with growth comes great responsibility. Now the WNBA has to keep it going. However, with the way things are going the odds are looking pretty good.
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