The growth of women’s basketball over the last few years is undeniable.
To know this is the case, all you have to do is turn on a sports talk show for a few minutes. But that growth is perhaps best reflected by the viewership numbers.
After the women’s NCAA tournament shattered a number of records — not just for women’s basketball but basketball games televised on ESPN, in general — it’s no surprise we saw the same effect with the WNBA draft on Monday night.
Featuring stars like Caitlin Clark, [autotag]Angel Reese[/autotag], Cameron Brink and more, the 2024 WNBA draft was by far the most watched of all time coming in at just under 2.5 million viewers. For context, the previous draft viewing record was set in 2004 with 601,000 viewers.
2.446 million viewers for the WNBA Draft on ESPN from 7:30-9:29 PM ET.
— Sports TV Ratings (@SportsTVRatings) April 16, 2024
The WNBA has seen its fair share of growth as well, but not quite at the level we’ve seen in college. With so many of these stars now matriculating into the league, it will be interesting to see if it has the same effect.
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