WNBA has strong opening on Twitter, FanDuel

New York — It was a good opening weekend for the WNBA on the court and an even better one off the court.

The league had its first live streamed game on Twitter on Sunday with Diana Taurasi and Phoenix facing Skylar Diggins-Smith and Dallas. There were 1.1 million unique viewers and an average minute audience of 62,459 watching. That's about a third of what the NFL drew on average for its 10 Thursday Night Football games.

Twitter, which counts a view when a video is 50 percent in view for two seconds, said that the game was watched across the U.S. and worldwide. Twitter also unveiled a WNBA emoji when fans tweeted #WNBA or #WNBALive.

"This is a new season and you always want to not only maintain your momentum, but accelerate it," WNBA President Lisa Borders told The Associated Press.

"It's all about the fan base and growing the league. Twitter and Fanduel are two tools for us to grow. They are great partnerships. Having them so well received was a huge success all the way around."

The idea of streaming games came from a conversation Borders had with Seattle Storm guard Jewell Loyd this past winter.

"She asked me about ideas to help grow the game," Loyd said Monday night. "Being overseas and watching the Super Bowl on Twitter, I was like why don't we try to get a lot of our games on Twitter so it's global. Our overseas fans don't get to watch us in the WNBA and now going on Twitter they can, it expands our game."

Loyd had a stellar opening weekend herself, averaging 26 points two games for the Storm.

"People get a chance to see the best players in the world and saw some really good games this past weekend," Loyd said. "The league is getting better, games are getting more competitive."

The next Twitter game is Friday night with Phoenix visiting the San Antonio Stars. The social media site, which has a threeyear deal with the WNBA, will show 20 games this season. Only games that are not on television can be seen online.

Fans also flocked to FanDuel to play WNBA daily fantasy games with more than 30,000 competing.