WNBA saw increases in attendance, viewership, social media and merchandise during the 2017 postseason

The WNBA saw increases in attendance, viewership, social media and merchandise during the 2017 postseason the league announced today. The season concluded with the Minnesota Lynx winning the franchise’s fourth title after a game five victory over the Los Angeles Sparks.

The highlights of the league’s postseason include the following.

Attendance: The WNBA postseason averaged 9,596 spectators per game, making it the highest-attended postseason since 2010 (10,822).  This year’s postseason attendance was up double digits (+10.1%) over last season (8,719).

Viewership: The 2017 WNBA Finals on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 was the third most-watched WNBA Finals ever on ESPN networks averaging 559,000 viewers for the five-game series since the networks began exclusively televising the Finals in 2003. This year’s championship was highlighted by Game 5 of the WNBA Finals on ESPN2, which averaged 902,000 viewers (including streaming audience) to become the fifth most-watched WNBA postseason game during the networks’ 18 years of playoffs and Finals coverage.

Social media: The WNBA set new records across its social media platforms during the postseason with 246 million impressions (+33.9%), 47 million video views (+109.6%) and 20 million actions (+161.2%) over last season.

Merchandise: The postseason garnered record sales on WNBAStore.com, an increase of 38% over last year.

Last week the league announced that overall, the 2017 Finals had the highest ratings since 2003.