It seems a lot of people watch Women’s college basketball more than the WNBA. The WNBA Playoffs viewership was down 24% this season, averaging 257,00 people. The WNBA Finals averaged 381,00, and it was the least-watched finals since 2013 when the Minnesota Lynx played the Atlanta Dream. WNBA regular season viewership was up 7%, with an average of 246,00 people on ESPN, ESPN2, and ABC.
WNBA attendance is down 3.5% from last season with an average of 6,535 people. But every year since 2010, the WNBA has crossed 1.3 million fans in total attendance. The Los Angeles Sparks led the league in attendance with an average of 11,307 fans, and the WNBA Champions Washington Mystics were the worst with 4,456 fans.
NCAA
The 2019 NCAA women’s college basketball tournament netted an average of 274,507 fans that’s an increase of 22,000 from the previous year tournament. The championship alone 20,127 fans attended.
The Championship game between Notre Dame and Baylor averaged 3.6 million viewers and peaked at 5.5 million in the final minutes. The WNBA winner takes all game five had a rating of 0.27 and 440,000 viewers. So why is Women’s college basketball more popular than the WNBA?
Coverage
NCAA women’s basketball gets a lot of national coverage; the WNBA does not have much at all. Some of the major sports web sites do not have a WNBA tab on their website. You have a lot of sports websites that do not cover the WNBA but are quick to trash it.
There are not many WNBA beat writers unless there is a team in the city to cover. Most of the WNBA star players are shocked because they go from playing in sold-out college arenas to sometimes half full WNBA arenas.
Networking and fan base
Women’s college hoops benefit from having a built-in fanbase. I think people are going to watch and attend college basketball because they went to school there or had family members that attended the school as well. Then you have the alumni who come back and support the school. Not to mention all the students that attend, im sure its nothing like game day or night on campus.
Another big part is networking; at colleges, you can have campus newspapers, and the local news plays a significant role in covering the team in their sports segments.
What’s next?
The WNBA needs to do a better job at trying to get more media members to the game to cover their league. Some teams only have one media member in the locker room after the game. Also, the WNBA should do a better job promoting their league to try to entice people to watch. The key for the WNBA is finding fans outside of WNBA cities; it is a must if they want the league to grow. I think it will start with getting media members to cover the sport. The more coverage the more people are likely to watch.
