Monday’s 2025 WNBA Draft scored the second-highest viewership in the event's history, with an average of 1.25 million viewers tuning into ESPN to witness the league’s newest young stars turn pro.
The broadcast peaked at 1.46 million viewers, becoming just the second-ever WNBA Draft to surpass the million-fan mark.
That rise represents a 119% increase over the 2023 edition, with Monday's live event weighing in as the night’s most popular programming among key demographics across both broadcast and cable TV.
NCAA superstars fuel enthusiasm for WNBA Draft
Interest in the WNBA Draft hit a steep peak in 2024, as an average of 2.45 million viewers watched Iowa superstar Caitlin Clark start her WNBA journey with the Indiana Fever.
This year’s iteration also offered a wealth of star power, featuring No. 1 overall pick Paige Bueckers as well as other 2025 Final Four standouts.
"We're just continuing to try to grow the game, expand the game, bring the viewership from the college game to the WNBA," Bueckers told reporters gathered at The Shed in Manhattan.
"I think the new wave and generation of basketball players are bringing so much to the game, but obviously off the foundation that the players before us have built," she added.
With more NCAA basketball fans following their favorites to the pros, it's now up to the WNBA to sustain that interest through the regular season — and beyond.
UConn’s big NCAA championship win over South Carolina on Sunday weighed in as ESPN’s third most-watched title match in women’s March Madness history, with an average viewership of 8.6 million fans and a peak of 9.9 million.
Also making a viewership mark last weekend were Friday's Final Four tilts. Both the 4.2 million fans who tuned into UConn's win over UCLA and the 3.7 million who saw South Carolina take down Texas helped those games claim spots in the sport's Top 10 most watched across ESPN platforms.
The 2025 grand finale fell short of the Caitlin Clark-fueled 2023 and 2024 championship games. However, Sunday’s matchup towered over the 2022 edition with an impressive 75% viewership increase.
The 2025 championship more than doubled the 2021's 4.1 million viewers. This demonstrates a sharp continued uptick in the sport's widespread popularity.
With the 2024/25 NCAA women's basketball tournament scoring massive viewership numbers from tip-off through trophy-lifting, it's not entirely surprising that this season's edition registered as the second most-watched women's March Madness on record, boasting an impressive 8.5 billion minutes of content consumed.
Auriemma, Staley push for new March Madness media deal
Both 2025 NCAA championship-contending head coaches subsequently voiced support for securing a new media rights deal. They seek one that separates women's basketball from its current package alongside 39 other collegiate championships.
"For years and years and years we’ve been packaged with all the other Olympic sports, so to speak, in one big chunk. Can we completely separate ourselves and say, 'What are we worth to you?,'" UConn manager Geno Auriemma said on Sunday.
Although a separate deal is a tough ask given that the current contract runs through 2032, South Carolina boss Dawn Staley echoed Auriemma's sentiment. She advocated for a standalone deal similar to the one that's brought lucrative success to the men's tournament.
"I don't know if [new WBCA president Jose Fernandez] can get that, [but opening] up negotiations for a new television deal would be nice," said Staley.
"We need our own television deal so we can understand what our worth is."
Viewership stats from March Madness are in, with the first two rounds of the 2024/25 NCAA women’s basketball tournament ranking as ESPN’s second most-watched on record across all platforms.
Trailing only 2024’s Caitlin Clark-fueled historic postseason, 2025’s slate of 32 first-round games averaged a 43% increase over 2023's edition, with ABC enjoying its second-highest first-round viewership ever.
ABC's first-round average of 1 million fans came in part because 1.1 million tuned into No. 2-seed UConn's 103-34 thrashing of No. 15-seed Arkansas State last Saturday, securing the network it's third-highest single-game first-round viewership on record.
In a non-championship round that saw the highest average margin of victory in March Madness history — a differential well over 26 points — last weekend's first round also gave ESPN its second-best viewership stats since 2008.
March Madness second round scores even higher
As the competition's temperature rose in last weekend's second round, so too did viewership, with ESPN's platforms snagging a 60% overall boost over the same round in 2023, earning an average of nearly 1 million viewers across the 16 games.
Yet again, the Huskies led the charge, with UConn's 91-57 blowout win over No. 10-seed South Dakota State drawing an average of 1.7 million fans to ESPN on Monday night — an audience large enough to rank as the fifth most-viewed second-round game in history.
Joining UConn's victory in the NCAA tournament's Top 10 most-watched second-round games are No. 1-seed South Carolina's 64-53 Sunday win over No. 9-seed Indiana and No. 1-seed USC's 96-59 defeat of No. 9-seed Mississippi State on Monday.
The defending national champion Gamecocks' second March Madness matchup jumped into that elite echelon by averaging 1.4 million viewers on ABC, with the Trojans's heartbreaking yet heroic win garnering 1.3 million average fans on ESPN.
All in all, while last year’s historic peaks won’t be easy to replicate, this year’s numbers indicate consistent year-after-year growth across a wider variety of teams — signaling that this season’s strength lies in its breadth of star power, as both superstars and unique storylines compete in every bracket quadrant.
Less than two months before the season tips off on May 16th, the WNBA dropped its full 2025 national broadcast slate on Thursday, rewarding last year’s most in-demand teams with a significant uptick in screen time.
Fueled by the fan fervor around 2024 Rookie of the Year Caitlin Clark, the Indiana Fever will see a league-record 41 of their 44 regular-season games aired nationally this season.
That tally includes all five Fever matchups against regional rival Chicago, after the pair's June 23rd game averaged 2.3 million viewers — becoming the most-watched game of the 2024 regular season.
Just behind Indiana in earning significant national broadcast coverage are two-time WNBA champs Las Vegas, who will see 33 of their games aired across the country. As for the reigning champions New York Liberty, they trail the Aces by just one game, with 32 of their 2025 season games garnering national attention.
Record WNBA ratings spur big broadcast moves
Thanks to 2024’s monster ratings, big-name networks are increasingly recognizing the WNBA as a profitable summer product, with broadcasters expanding their coverage as the league prepares for its 11-year, $2.2 billion media rights contract to kick in next year.
With the 2025 WNBA season expanding from 40 to 44 games per team, ION is leading all broadcasters with 50 regular-season games, with ABC/ESPN, CBS Sports, NBA TV, and Amazon Prime all taking a piece of the pro women's basketball league's pie.
Broadcasters are also moving games off of their sports-specific networks and onto flagship cable channels, with a record 13 matchups — a full half of Disney Networks' 26 regular-season games — set to air on ABC, including the 2025 WNBA All-Star Game.
The league will also see its first-ever regular-season games earn primetime broadcast TV slots, with CBS Sports elevating two of its 20 games — the June 7th and August 9th battles between the Chicago Sky and the Indiana Fever — to its flagship network, CBS.
As the WNBA shoots for an even more impactful 2025 season, broadcasters are helping to boost the charge, offering increased access to the league’s brightest stars and biggest games.
The first-ever Unrivaled Basketball playoffs delivered both on and off the court, with Rose BC’s championship victory over Vinyl BC drawing the largest TV audience the offseason league has seen in 3×3 play to date.
An average of 364,000 viewers tuned into Monday’s final, peaking at 385,000 fans and marking a 99% increase over Unrivaled’s record-breaking regular-season average audience of 221,000.
Including the league's postseason success, Unrivaled capped its inaugural season having aired the 10 most-watched women’s basketball broadcasts in the history of broadcast partner TNT Sports.
In total, Unrivaled reached an impressive 11.9 million viewers across its two-month regular-season and postseason run — including the league's first-ever in-season 1v1 tournament.
That head-to-head competition ultimately drew the league's top performing tilt, with the final between runner-up Mist forward Aaliyah Edwards and eventual 1v1 champion and Lunar Owls forward Napheesa Collier averaging 377,000 viewers with a 398,000-fan peak.
"We’ve built an incredible foundation," Unrivaled president Alex Bazzell told reporters once the season wrapped. "Based on what the viewership is, now it’s our job to [ask] 'how do we grow that a bit?' We’re very proud about where we stand in the women’s sports ecosystem of viewership."
Unrivaled bags more big wins in inaugural season
Outside of TV viewership, Unrivaled also scored high social media engagement numbers, which have been a key metric for the league since its outset.
This season saw the league generate more than 589 million owned and earned social media impressions, and the pool of Unrivaled athletes collectively grew their own personal accounts by nearly one million followers in less than three months.
Perhaps most importantly for the players, the league followed through on its promise to prioritize athlete compensation, shelling out over $8.65 million in player salaries and performance bonuses from both Monday's championship and last month's 1v1 tournament.
With the offseason league designed primarily as a TV product, both Unrivaled and TNT will carry 2025’s wins far into their six-year partnership’s future — all while the WNBA will look to capitalize on the league’s ratings successes as its own May 16th season-opener nears.
Securing a Women’s March Madness ad spot has never been tougher, with Disney and ESPN reporting a 200% year-over-year rise in total ad sales, with an impressive 95% of the 2024/25 NCAA tournament's overall inventory already sold.
Ads for April 6th's championship game completely sold out over three months ago, as brand interest surges alongside women's college basketball's skyrocketing viewership.
With some of the championship spots topping $1 million, Disney Advertising now puts those seven-figure March Madness ad rates on par with the cost of advertising during the NBA Finals or College Football Playoff National Championship game.
Brands race to buy ad space in women's sports
Revenue and impact generated by women’s basketball advertising has been on the rise all season, fueling the race to buy into one of the year's biggest sports moments.
While 45 new brands hopped on the March Madness train this year, previous brands returned with even bigger budgets, increasing their 2025 spending by an average of 81%.
"We actually had to strategically fight to not sell out sooner," Disney Advertising VP of revenue and yield management Jacqueline Dobies told AdWeek. "We intentionally wanted to carve out space for as many of our brands as possible and be as inclusive as possible for this particular property."
"If we would have taken every single dollar and unit we had been offered, we would have sold out before the upfront was even over."
As advertisers continue to elbow their way into the space, expect the March Madness uptick to spill over into future events across women’s sports — especially as brands who are late to the party scramble to buy in.
"A lot of years ago, the question was: 'How do we convince brands to buy women’s sports?'" noted Dobies. "That’s not the conversation anymore. It’s: 'How do we make space for everybody?'"
Blockbuster viewership isn’t the only booming women’s sports statistic, with women's sports ads making serious inroads as more brands buy into the growing market.
Per a study released by TV outcomes company EDO on Tuesday, women’s sports saw an overall 56% year-over-year increase in ad effectiveness in 2024, with 40% more ad impact than an average primetime ad.
Based on consumer behavior metrics like brand searches and site visits, some of the most effective advertisers last year were apparel brands like Athleta, Fabletics, and Skims.
Even more, efficacy measures skyrocketed when brands put sports and women athletes in their content. CarMax ads spotlighting women's basketball stars, for example, exceeded other WNBA advertisers' effectiveness by 185%.
"Women’s sports are officially a business imperative," said EDO SVP and head of client solutions Laura Grover. "It’s not just about reaching this fast-growing audience — it’s about inspiring action, building brand affinity, and driving real business impact."
Basketball leads women's sports ad impact numbers
The spike in ad revenue coincides with the surging popularity of both college sports and women’s basketball, with ads during WNBA and NCAA games boosting viewer engagement and brand loyalty.
The 2024 WNBA Playoffs, for instance, saw an 11% increase in ad impact over the 2023 edition.
Meanwhile, both the 2024 WNBA Playoffs and 2024 NCAA women's basketball tournament ads proved 24% and 18% more effective, respectively, than the primetime average.
With March Madness taking over the airwaves in the coming weeks, expect even more brand involvement, as companies buy into both the NCAA sport and its stars.
One athlete leading that charge is USC sophomore phenom JuJu Watkins, whose numerous NIL endorsements have the 19-year-old starring in a commercials for NYX Professional Makeup, Degree, and State Farm.
Gymnastics, volleyball draw advertisers to NCAA women's sports
The NCAA also boasts significant brand boosts in rising women's sports like lacrosse and gymnastics, which saw respective ad impact growths of 26% and 15%.
That said, college volleyball boasts the sporting event with the biggest brand impact. With a 51% ad efficacy rate over the primetime average, Penn State's 2024 NCAA championship win over Louisville was last year's most effective women's sports TV program.
All in all, the market is seizing onto the fact that women’s sports are good business and, with a seemingly limitless ceiling, 2025 could see the highest rate of return yet.
ESPN’s women's college basketball coverage has exploded across the broadcast giant's platforms, with regular-season viewership 3% up from last year’s record-breaking run and 41% up from 2022/23.
ESPN reports that 2024/25’s overall ratings were their highest since the 2008/09 season, with 2.9 billion minutes of live women's college basketball games consumed.
While this year’s regular-season peaks outdrew last year’s top matchups, ESPN also saw significant growth in steady viewership.
Across the 87 games the broadcaster aired, each game averaged 280,000 viewers, with a record-breaking 15 games drawing over 500,000 viewers.
Due to network partnership deals, ESPN is still missing the rights to Big Ten coverage, while the SEC continues to pull in the heaviest numbers.
Flagship channels see top women's college basketball viewership
The company's flagship networks also saw significant individual ratings growth in their NCAA women's basketball coverage. Games on ESPN drew an average of 511,000 fans, for an increase of 13% over last season's coverage on the network.
Even more, the three games the broadcaster upgraded to ABC gave the channel an average of 1.3 million viewers, for an overall increase of 120% over 2023/24 games.
ABC also the regular season's two biggest audiences.
Just one week after ESPN broke the 1 million viewer mark with then-No. 4 Texas' upset win over No. 2 South Carolina, ABC's February 16th UConn vs. South Carolina plus Texas vs. LSU shattered double-header that stat.
Then-No. 5 UConn’s 87-58 blowout of the reigning national champion Gamecocks attracted the season’s biggest audience, garnering an average of 1.8 million viewers with a peak of 2.2 million.
Texas’s 65-58 victory over the then-No. 7 Tigers snagged the 2024/25 season's second-biggest audience, peaking at 2.3 million viewers while drawing an average of 1.7 million fans.
Besides leading this season's ratings, those two blockbuster matchups registered as the third and fourth highest regular-season women's college basketball viewership in ESPN's history.
ESPN scored a pair of blockbuster wins last weekend, as Sunday’s NCAA basketball doubleheader featuring No. 5 UConn vs. No. 6 South Carolina plus No. 2 Texas vs. No. 7 LSU earned the network record viewership.
First, UConn’s 87-58 blowout of the reigning national champion Gamecocks garnered an average of 1.8 million viewers with a peak of 2.2 million. Later, Texas’s 65-58 victory over the Tigers peaked at 2.3 million viewers while drawing an average of 1.7 million fans.
The back-to-back lineup became the most-watched women's basketball games across ESPN platforms this season. Even more, the matchups registered the third and fourth highest regular-season viewership in the NCAA sport in the broadcast giant's history.
Sunday’s pregame show also put up impressive numbers, becoming the most-watched regular-season Women’s College Gameday since 2010.
Notably, Sunday's doubleheader aired on the broadcast conglomerate's flagship network, ABC — placing some of the country's tops college stars into a prime national spotlight.
Fans tune in as NCAA season sprints toward March Madness
With March's postseason play fast approaching, interest in top NCAA basketball programs — and the elite stars on their rosters — continues to explode throughout the 2024/25 regular season.
ESPN’s ratings have risen accordingly, with UConn’s December upset loss to Notre Dame averaging 847,000 viewers, while South Carolina’s win over SEC rivals LSU averaged 1.56 million fans last month.
Ultimately, when major networks elevate regular-season women's college basketball games, fans consistently respond with massive viewership numbers. For ESPN, there’s nowhere to go but up, as the NCAA tournament rights-holder keeps successfully pushing college coverage.
How to watch Top 25 NCAA basketball on Thursday
With almost 260 college basketball games earning airtime across ESPN's platforms this week, 16 of the country's Top 25 teams will be featured on the broadcaster's networks before next Wednesday.
Top Thursday matchups include an SEC clash between No. 18 Alabama and hosts No. 15 Tennessee, which tips off at 6:30 PM ET and will stream live on ESPN subsidiary SECN+.
Earning a prime broadcast spot on ESPN2 is No. 11 Duke, who will host unranked Louisville at 7 PM ET.
Friday's Unrivaled 3×3 Basketball debut was an unequivocal success for TV partner TNT Sports, as the new offseason 3x3 league's opening lineup became the most-watched women's basketball games in the broadcast network's history.
The doubleheader logged viewership averages of 313,000 and 311,000, respectively, with the first game peaking at 364,000.
Notably, these numbers do not include viewers on Max, where every Unrivaled game is available to stream live under the league's six-year, $100 million media deal with Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD).
In 2022, WNBA games averaged 372,000 viewers across Disney networks, with the league later surpassing 500,000 across ABC, ESPN, and CBS in 2023 before reaching a 1.19 million average on ESPN in 2024.
Unlike the well-established WNBA, which is on the cusp of entering its 29th year, Unrivaled is a new-look product in its first-ever season. With that in mind, Unrivaled's initial numbers are promising, particularly for a league that's prioritizing long-term wins over instant gratification.
"I think we put ourselves in a great position to be successful right away, but it’s a marathon," league president Alex Bazzell told The Athletic before Unrivaled’s launch. "We’re not running out there from Day 1 trying to get millions of viewers out of the gate."
One piece of the Unrivaled fan engagement puzzle
Viewership is just one way the league is measuring fan engagement, with Unrivaled also turning an eye toward social media metrics.
"[Viewership is] not fully indicative of what is the overall fan interest because there’s so many ways to consume leagues and teams and highlights," noted Bazzell.
It's one reason that partnering with WBD was so appealing to the new league. The media giant's already robust sports social media channels are elevating Unrivaled content across platforms to an established, sports-hungry audience.
To that end, Unrivaled’s opening weekend content garnered 31 million views across WBD’s social channels and fueled a 59% viewership boost of the media giant's women's sports-specific TikTok account.