USA Sports averages 525,000 viewers in first WNBA season

USA Sports averaged 525,000 viewers across 48 WNBA regular-season games in its inaugural year of coverage, the broadcaster announced Sept. 29.

The average was 25% above the 2025 WNBA cable audience baseline cited in the release. It compares USA’s first season with the previous year’s cable coverage, rather than measuring growth from an earlier USA season.

Five USA Network games averaged more than one million viewers, including Lynx–Fever on the final day of the regular season. Seven games exceeded 900,000. The company identified Fever–Sparks on July 8 as the most-watched late-night regular-season WNBA game.

Women represented 47% of USA Sports’ WNBA audience. The release also reported demographic audience increases and said CNBC simulcasts introduced one million new viewers to the league during the season.

That new-viewer figure describes reach across the season and is separate from the average audience for a game. The 48-game regular-season average also covers a different set of broadcasts from the WNBA playoff audiences.

USA Sports’ media agreement with the WNBA runs through 2036 and provides at least 50 games annually, including regular-season coverage and portions of the playoffs and Finals in selected years.