The recently completed Fever-Aces playoff Game 3 on Thursday attracted an average of 2.25 million viewers on USA Network, according to Nielsen panel-only data. This figure ranks as the third-largest WNBA playoff audience recorded outside of the WNBA Finals, falling behind the Fever-Sun Game 2 two years ago, which garnered 2.54 million viewers, and the Sparks-Comets Game 2 from the 1999 Western Conference Finals, which reached 2.62 million.

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The complete Nielsen “Big Data + Panel” viewership statistics will be released on Monday, but these figures typically yield higher viewership numbers than the panel-only data. The Aces' win peaked at 2.7 million viewers in the 11:15 PM ET quarter-hour, making it the fourth-largest WNBA audience ever on cable. It trails behind the Fever-Dream matchup on ESPN this season, which averaged 2.58 million, the previously mentioned Fever-Sun Game 2, and Fever-Sky on ESPN that also aired earlier in the same year with 2.30 million viewers. Notably, Game 3 aired simultaneously with NFL's “Thursday Night Football” on Prime Video and a decisive MLB postseason game between the Phillies and Braves on NBC.

Excluding the Olympics, Game 3 was the most-watched sporting event on USA Sports this year. In comparison, last year's winner-take-all semifinal Game 5 between the Aces and Fever, which did not feature the injured Caitlin Clark, averaged 1.83 million on ESPN2. The Fever also had a winner-take-all Game 3 in last year's first round that brought in 1.2 million viewers on ESPN, also without Clark.

The series' Game 2, which took place on Tuesday, averaged 1.42 million on Amazon Prime Video, marking the largest WNBA audience on the platform, despite the 6:30 PM ET start time and competition from a Red Sox-Yankees postseason game. This was a decrease from last year's Fever-Dream Game 2 average of 1.5 million on ESPN, which faced no MLB playoff competition.

On the same night, Lynx-Liberty Game 2 attracted 1.06 million viewers on USA Network, which is comparable to the Aces-Storm game on ESPN from the previous year, which had 1.1 million viewers. Both games on Tuesday outperformed the three NHL Opening Night games that aired simultaneously on ESPN.

Additionally, Wednesday's Valkyries-Wings Game 2 averaged 1.4 million viewers, while the Dream-Mystics game had an average of 1.2 million. The first game of the Mystics-Dream series recorded 425,000 viewers on Prime Video on Sunday evening.

Jon Lewis has been covering the sports media industry since 2006 and is the founder and main writer of Sports Media Watch.