By: Claire Zhou

The WNBA reached new heights during this year’s WNBA All-Star Game against the U.S. women’s national team. Stars like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese helped team WNBA take home the victory over the U.S. women’s national team.

In addition to the WNBA’s big win, the game smashed the all-time viewership record for a WNBA All-Star Game broadcast. The previous record was set in the 2003 WNBA All-Star Game with a peak viewership of 1.441 million. The game was legendary due to many iconic female figures playing in the game. This year 3.44 million people tuned in to watch the epic matchup, beating the previous record by more than double.

The 2024 WNBA All-Star Game is the third most-watched WNBA game in history, and the most-watched WNBA event on an ESPN network. This season has been revolutionary for the WNBA: the All-Star Game is the 17th game this year to reach 1 million viewers.

To put this phenomenon into perspective, before 2024 the league had not reached the million viewer mark in over 16 years. All-Star Caitlin Clark has participated in 15 of the 17 games, which goes to show how much potential the rookie has.

Julie Sobieski, SVP of League Programming and Acquisitions at ESPN had something to say about the record-breaking game: “This weekend’s extraordinary viewership underscores women’s sports’ exponential growth and ESPN is proud to showcase this incredible league and its exceptional athletes on such a grand stage.”

This is the second year in a row that ESPN officials opted to stream the WNBA All-Star game on a network (ABC) with a large amount of viewers.

Image Credit by IMG_1979 Števonka