The cost of tickets for the the WNBA finals—particularly Game 4 following Sabrina Ionescu’s buzzer beater shot in Game 3 Wednesday night—is soaring when compared to last season, data from ticket marketplace Vivid Seats shows, with prices up as much 50% over the same game in last year’s finals.
Sabrina Ionescu of the New York Liberty shoots the ball against Alanna Smith of the Minnesota Lynx ... [+]
After Ionescu led the New York Liberty to a series lead over the Minnesota Lynx in Game 3, visits to the Vivid Seats ticket page for Game 4 spiked 200% overnight, the seller's data showed.
The average secondary ticket price for Friday night's game is $154 on Vivid Seats, up almost 50% over the average price of Game 4 tickets in last year's finals matchup between the Las Vegas Aces and New York Liberty.
At Gametime, a mobile ticket seller, ticket prices for finals games this year are up 43% over last season's series.
Interest in WNBA tickets have been rising all season long, Vivid Seats data shows, with average prices going up 67%: from $64 in 2023 to $107 in 2024 (including both regular and postseason tickets).
Game 4 of the best-of-five WNBA finals series between the Lynx (1-2) and Liberty (2-1) will tip off at 8 p.m. EDT Friday in Minnesota.
Get Forbes Breaking News Text Alerts: We’re launching text message alerts so you'll always know the biggest stories shaping the day’s headlines. Text “Alerts” to (201) 335-0739 or sign up here: joinsubtext.com/forbes.
The Minnesota Lynx could become the most decorated franchise in the WNBA if the team rallies to beat the Liberty. The Houston Comets, Seattle Storm and Lynx are currently tied for the title with four championships each.
A yearslong surge in popularity for the WNBA spiked last year when well-known college athletes Angel Reese and Caitlin Clark joined the league with the Chicago Sky and Indiana Fever, respectively. Ticket sales have risen, TV viewership has increased and the league secured a $2.2 billion media deal in July. The 2024 season had the most-attended opening month in 26 years, was the most-watched games ever on national television and sold out more than half of its games in the first month of the season, the WNBA said, a 156% increase from the number of sold out games in the same period the year before.
New teams. The WNBA is expanding and will welcome three new teams over the next two years. The Bhathal family, part of a group that bought the Sacramento Kings NBA team in 2013, last month announced their investment in a Portland WNBA team to enter the league in 2026. A California team called the Golden State Valkyries is set to join the league next year and a Toronto team will join with Portland in 2026.
WNBA postseason tickets are still much cheaper than tickets to the NBA’s counterpart games. NBA finals tickets hit record highs this May, reaching an average price of more than $4,000 on the secondary market a week before the championship series began. The cheapest tickets for the first game in the Mavericks-Celtics final were $900 on the secondary market. Ticket prices only continued to increase as the series went on: Game 4 tickets averaged $2,352, Axios reported.