Fans can mock the WNBA for not being profitable all it wants, but the fact of the matter is that the league is growing at a rate that would make almost any similar league in the world jealous.
According to Austin Karp of the Sports Business Journal, 2026 marked the WNBA’s best season since 2000, with games averaging 771,000 viewers per game – a 17-percent increase from last season. Karp noted that 51 games had over one million viewers, an increase from the 19 such games in 2025.
There were plenty of other good metrics, all which marked either all-time highs or multi-decade highs.
“The WNBA had its best season since 2000, as games averaged 771,000 viewers in the first year of a new media-rights pact. That’s up 17% from last season as well. Even when including Peacock-exclusive games, the average is 731,000, and the superlative remains. There were 51 games that drew over 1 million viewers this season, which is 32 more than reached that figure last year. Eighteen games were over 1.5 million, and nine topped 2 million. There were 320.7 million total hours of WNBA game action consumed during the regular season, a record for the league and up 117% from 2025. The regular season also had a cumulative reach of 91 million unique viewers, which is the best for the WNBA yet,” Karp wrote.
Numbers on the Rise Everywhere
Just about every carrier of WNBA games saw big boosts to the numbers. ABC/ESPN saw a 17-percent rise in viewers across its networks. Its 17 cable TV games increased in viewership by a whopping 32-percent, several of which set records. Even the games without Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever helped boost the numbers by nearly 25-percent.
CBS enjoyed a nine-percent increase in viewership, which included 14 games of over one million viewers.
The games on USA Network and CNBC enjoyed a 25-percent boost over last year and averaged 525,000 viewers per game.
Trevor Ruszkowski-Imagn Images.
Not every network enjoyed big gains though. However, the few that did experience losses didn’t suffer all that much. ION saw a two-percent dip in ratings (about 10,000 fewer average viewers) to 617,000 average viewers, but is still enjoying more than double the ratings that it had in 2023, prior to Caitlin Clark’s arrival.
NBA TV averaged 280,000 viewers per game, which was slightly down.
Prime Video averaged 437,000 viewers per game but began using a different metric this year.
All in all, the WNBA and its partners have to be pretty happy with the way things are moving.
