HARTFORD, Conn. — After more than two decades first as a player, then a coach in both the NCAA and WNBA, Connecticut Sun coach Stephanie White said this season was the first time she saw average college women's basketball fans follow their favorite players into the pros on a meaningful scale. The 2024 WNBA rookie class helped launch the league to a new level of popularity coming off of a college basketball season that was already record-setting: The UConn women's basketball team was a part of the most-viewed basketball game ever on ESPN in its 2024 Final Four matchup with Iowa, and the national championship game between South Carolina and the Hawkeyes was the second most-watched non-Olympic women's sporting event on record behind the 2015 World Cup Final.
The WNBA season continued to foster that excitement with historic viewership and engagement in 2024: The league announced Friday that it averaged a record 1.2 million regular-season viewers on ESPN platforms, and it also drew its highest Finals viewership in 25 years with an average of 1.6 million tuned in.
The Finals also delivered a thrilling end to the season with a five-game series that included two overtime games and ended in the first-ever title for the New York Liberty. "It's the perfect storm of integration of of college stars, and the perfect storm of bringing the college fan to the WNBA, because there had been a disconnect for a long time," White said in August. "It's just that right time.
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