The WNBA’s 28th season is off to a roaring start. After an opening month that made headlines everywhere, the W announced Monday that approximately 400,000 fans attended games in May, the largest attendance in 26 years. The last time so many fans packed arenas to see WNBA games, it was 1999 and the league was entering just its third season.
The league’s early season growth doesn’t stop there. Across ABC, ESPN, ESPN2 and CBS, WNBA games are averaging 1.32 million viewers, nearly tripling last season’s average of 462,000 viewers. The Fever’s games on May 14 (vs. Connecticut Sun), May 18 (vs. New York Liberty), and May 20 (vs. Sun) all set viewership records for the respective networks as their most-watched WNBA games of all time. The opening night game May 14 averaged 2.12 million viewers for ESPN2, May 18 averaged 1.71 million viewers on ABC and May 20 averaged 1.56 million viewers on ESPN.