If you are a sports viewership nerd, today is a very interesting day. The Fever-Sun tip runs into both the early and later afternoon NFL schedule. The early window featured a Fox broadcast of the Eagles-Saints that kicked off at 1 p.m. (ET) and should draw a considerable viewership number. Then there is a really big viewership late-afternoon game — the Ravens and Cowboys airing in most of the country and has a 4:25 p.m. (ET) kickoff. Obviously, the NFL will draw many more millions than the WNBA but the interesting Q is what the Fever-Sun do on an over-the-air network (ABC) against the NFL.
ESPN’s WNBA regular season was its most-watched ever for games across ESPN Networks airwaves (including ABC). Games averaged 1.2 million viewers, a massive jump over last year’s games (440,000 viewers). The league had 22 regular-season games that averaged more than 1 million viewers — the first time since 2008 that a WNBA game topped 1 million viewers. If you add in the WNBA All-Star Game and the WNBA Draft, it makes 24 programming events during the 2024 calendar year that topped 1 million viewers. (Caitlin Clark was part of all but three of these windows, per Sports Media Watch).
What would constitute a good number against the NFL? Good question. We’ve never seen a WNBA TV draw such as Clark but the NFL also destroys everything it goes against. I think if the league hits 1.6 million viewers or above, it’s a big win.