Game 5 of the 2024 WNBA Finals between the victorious New York Liberty and runner-up Minnesota Lynx was the most watched Finals game in 25 years, with an average audience of 2.2 million viewers and a peak viewership of 3.3 million.

According to an ESPN press release, Game 5 was also the fourth-most watched WNBA Finals game in history. Across the series, this year's Finals audience was up 115 percent over last year's matchup, when the Las Vegas Aces beat the Liberty in four games.

This was a monumental year for the WNBA, which welcomed a host of exciting first-year talent led by Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese.

Clark in particular was a massive ratings draw. Per Jack Baer of Yahoo Sports, 20 of the 23 regular-season games that drew one million or more viewers this season featured Clark and the Indiana Fever. The top 14 games by audience all featured the Fever. Per Sports Media Watch, no WNBA game averaged over one million viewers since 2008 before this year.

But even without Clark, the WNBA playoffs saw massive ratings.

It helped that this year's WNBA Finals was the most competitive, closely contested matchup in league history, with three of the four games being decided by one possession and Game 5 going to overtime before the Liberty won 67-62.

It wouldn't be a surprise to see the all-time WNBA Finals single-game audience mark (3.25 million, Game 2 of the 1998 Finals, per Sports Media Watch) get shattered soon, perhaps as soon as next season.