2024 WNBA Finals showed women’s sports is the place to be

The 2024 WNBA Finals were the latest testament to the fact that women’s sports is the place to be as women’s basketball continues to rise in popularity.
The New York Liberty won their first-ever WNBA title Sunday after beating the Minnesota Lynx 67-62 in overtime in front of a record crowd.
While Rookie of the Year Caitlin Clark certainly helped make this season the WNBA’s most-watched season in 24 years and highest-attended season in 22 years, fans continued to show up to watch even after Clark’s Fever were swept in the first round of the playoffs.
Throughout the five-game WNBA Finals, fans showed up in droves.
This year’s matchup between the Liberty and Lynx was the most attended WNBA Finals in league history, averaging 18,518 fans, according to Togethxr.
That’s a higher attendance average than 17 NBA teams last season, per ESPN.
“This is what women’s sports can be when you will invest. Can’t wait to see the WNBA next season,” ESPN sideline reporter Holly Rowe said to close out the trophy presentation.
During the series, both the Lynx and the Liberty set home attendance records in their current arenas, the Target Center and Barclays Center, respectively, according to Caroline Fitzgerald of Goals.
The games held in the Liberty’s Barclays Center and the Lynx’s Target Center had a higher attendance average than the NBA teams — Brooklyn Nets and Minnesota Timberwolves — that played in the same arenas last season.
The following is the attendance for each game of the series, per Fitzgerald:
The 18,090 fans that set the attendance record for Liberty games at Barclays — 19,563 showed up to Game 1 of the 2000 WNBA Finals at Madison Square Garden — is a massive jump from the 1,757 fans the Liberty averaged four seasons ago, according to Across the Timeline.
“When we bought the team four years ago, they were playing at Westchester County Center to a crowd of 2,000, and the first thing we wanted to do was bring the team to Barclays Center so that they could have a bigger stage. And then we wanted to give them facilities and performance and nutrition and everything that they deserved, because they are such elite professional athletes,” Liberty owner Clara Wu Tsai said during the trophy presentation. “And look what can happen when you have an intention, and you put resources and care and attention to it.”
Even celebrities are showing up to watch WNBA action.
Jason Sudeikis, Aubrey Plaza, Spike Lee, Robin Roberts, Jennifer Hudson, Common, Angel Reese, Sue Wicks and Alex Morgan were all in attendance at Sunday’s WNBA Finals game.
Sudeikis, Plaza and Lee have been spotted at multiple Liberty games this season.
“We’ve got to see Sparks games out in L.A. I’ve been to see games in D.C., Chicago. It’s been amazing, and it’s great not only to take my daughter but also for my son to grow up in a world that he won’t know any different,” Sudeikis told ESPN on the pregame broadcast Sunday.
Over 2.3 million fans attended WNBA regular season games in 2024, an increase of 48% from last season, per the WNBA. The league averaged 9,807 fans for its 480 games.
Sellouts this season jumped from 45 games to 154, a 242% increase.
Every team felt the rise in popularity and attendance with each team experiencing “at least least double-digit year-over-year growth in attendance this season,” according to the league.
Fans also bought into the WNBA by purchasing related gear. Merchandise sales on the league’s website and at its store in New York increased 601% this season.
The WNBA is taking notice of its increase in popularity and will cash in next season.
“We are seeing an incredible demand for WNBA basketball, as reflected in the number of cities pursuing expansion franchises, fans attending games and engaging with our social and digital platforms in record fashion, and game broadcasts and streams being consumed like never before,” league commissioner Cathy Engelbert said in the press release ahead of Game 1 of the WNBA Finals.
In 2025, the WNBA Finals will expand from a five-game series to a seven-game series, and four games will be added to the regular season schedule, Engelbert announced in her press release.
“These changes will create more opportunities to watch the best players in the world compete at the highest level and give our fans a championship series format that they are accustomed to seeing in other sports,” Englebert said.