Warner Bros. Discovery enjoys early success from Unrivaled’s debut weekend

The GIST: Unrivaled saw solid viewership numbers for its opening night doubleheader, indicating the 3v3 pro women’s basketball league is off to a strong start. Keep scrolling for some major takeaways from Unrivaled’s early numbers.

✨ Unrivaled was ready for its close-up. In October, the league inked an exclusive multiyear media rights deal reportedly worth $100M with TNT, which is owned by Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). Per the agreement, games air across WBD linear channels TNT and truTV and stream live on Max, with WBD–owned sports brand Bleacher Report sharing Unrivaled content.

📺 Both matchups averaged over 300K viewers with a 364K viewership peak. The games brought in 313K and 311K average viewers each across TNT and truTV, resulting in TNT’s most-watched women’s basketball games ever after its previous high of 184K.

• On the digital side, Bleacher Report aggregated 31M views on Unrivaled social content during opening weekend, while the peak concurrent streaming viewers on Max’s B/R Sports platform was 4x its previous high for women’s basketball content.

👀 These numbers are lower than the W, but Caitlin Clark plays a large role. While the WNBA averaged 1.19M viewers on ESPN last season, these numbers were skewed by Clark’s arrival — in 2023, the league averaged 505K regular-season viewers across ABC, ESPN, and CBS. In fact, Unrivaled’s doubleheader surpassed the average viewership for 2024 WNBA games without Clark on cable by about 50%.

📱 Unrivaled is setting partners up for success with digital content distribution. The league and its teams have already amassed thousands of social media followers, but its partnerships and reach continue to set Unrivaled apart. Now that it finally has some proprietary pro women’s hoops content, Bleacher Report is rolling out B/R Women, a social channel highlighting game footage.

• And on Tuesday, Unrivaled named another partner: Adobe, which made Adobe Express the official fan engagement and content creation app for the league. All aboard.