A star-studded class of women’s college basketball players led by Caitlin Clark helped ESPN draw a record audience for Monday’s live WNBA Draft telecast.
The event averaged 2.4 million viewers, blowing away the 572,000 viewers for ESPN’s 2023 telecast and surpassing the former WNBA Draft record of 601,000 viewers set in 2004, according to Nielsen numbers published by Sports Media Watch. The draft featured Iowa Hawkeyes star Clark, whom the Indiana Fever selected with the first overall pick.
2.45 million viewers for the WNBA draftSheesh pic.twitter.com/bQWBT6XpVxApril 16, 2024
The draft also featured college hoops standouts Cameron Brink, selected by the Los Angeles Sparks at No. 2, Kamilla Cardoso, selected third by the Chicago Sky, and Angel Reese, selected seventh by the Sky.
The record WNBA draft numbers come on the heels of a record-setting 18.9 million viewers who tuned into the April 7 NCAA women’s college basketball title game, where the South Carolina Gamecocks defeated Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes.
