The WNBA Finals capped off the greatest year for women's sports

The New York Liberty won their first WNBA Championship Sunday night, defeating the Minnesota Lynx in the series' decisive Game 5 67-62 in overtime. The game's thrilling ending has people calling the series the greatest WNBA Finals of all time, and those fans could even go a step further and say this year has been women's sports' greatest year of all time.

First, let's talk about the NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Tournament. Fans were treated to a rematch of the 2023 National Championship in the Elite 8, with Caitlin Clark's Iowa Hawkeyes getting revenge on Angel Reese's LSU Tigers. Clark scored 41 points in Iowa's 94-87 win. The Final Four was even better. Iowa advanced to its second straight National Championship game with a gritty 71-69 win over the UConn Huskies. Iowa held off a UConn comeback in the last five minutes to advance.

In the National Championship, however, Iowa was no match for South Carolina, losing 87-75 on the sport's biggest stage for the second straight year. Not all was lost, however. Due to Clark's record-breaking year -- she broke the record for most points scored by a women's college basketball player -- people were watching like never before. The 2024 Women's Final Four averaged 13.8 million viewers, almost 300% higher than two years ago.

At the Paris Olympics this summer, women's gymnastics stole the show. The women's team final averaged 12.7 million viewers across NBC and Peacock. It was one of the network's most watched daytime events ever. More people watched the US Women take gold for the fifth Olympics in a row than any game of the NBA Finals or any round of the NFL draft.

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And finally, the WNBA. During the regular season, the WNBA set an all-time record of 54 million unique viewers across all broadcast platforms. 22 regular season games averaged more than one million viewers. Caitlin Clark's final game of her rookie season averaged 2.5 million viewers, the most watched WNBA game on cable ever.

WNBA attendance was the highest its been in 22 years. Attendance averaged 9,807 fans per game, an increase of 48%. The Indiana Fever set an attendance record of 340,715 fans.

While the numbers aren't out yet for Sunday night's thrilling Game 5, Game 3 of the WNBA Finals, which ended on a Sabrina Ionescu buzzer-beating three-pointer, averaged 1.39 million viewers, breaking the viewership record set in Game 2, which broke the record set in Game 1.

Game 5 certainly broke that record again. It was a back-and-forth contest that saw no team hold more than a four-point lead in the fourth quarter. Liberty forward Breanna Stewart sunk two clutch free throws to tie the game with five seconds left and in overtime hit two more free throws to put the game out of reach. The Liberty celebrated their first championship on their home court at the Barclays Center.

In the greatest year for women's sports ever, it will be interesting to see what 2025 has to bring after so many more people watched, attended and talked about the games this year.

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