Video Caitlin Clark Changed the WNBA Forever — So Why Does the League Keep Fighting It? | Don't @ Me w/ Dan Dakich Dan breaks down how Indiana Fever superstar Caitlin Clark single-handedly transformed the WNBA into a mainstream powerhouse, driving unprecedented ratings, arena sellouts, and league-wide attention and growth.
You know, the thing where she plays basketball and the WNBA suddenly posts a television number that was literally impossible in the 15 years before she entered the league.
Clark and the Indiana Fever faced Angel Reese and the Atlanta Dream on Sunday, and the game averaged 2.6 million viewers on ESPN, making it the most-watched WNBA game in cable television history.
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Not just a regular-season game. Not just an ESPN game.
Any WNBA game ever on cable, regular season or playoffs.
The audience peaked at a whopping 4 million viewers as the game went down to the wire and eventually reached overtime. The average audience was up 178% compared to ESPN's WNBA regular-season average last year.
Of course, it probably didn't hurt that the game featured Clark and Reese.
The rivalry between the two stars dates back to the 2023 NCAA women’s national championship game, when Reese's LSU Tigers defeated Clark's Iowa Hawkeyes and Reese famously, and without class, taunted Clark in the closing moments.
Since then, Clark-Reese matchups have consistently brought eyeballs to women's basketball, first in college and then in the WNBA.
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Plus, unlike some of their previous WNBA matchups, Sunday's game actually lived up to the hype.
Indiana erased an eight-point second-half deficit and forced overtime before defeating Atlanta, 95-91. Clark led the Fever with 26 points and nine assists, while Reese posted 15 points, 14 rebounds and six assists for the Dream. Clark hit two clutch free throws to secure the win, while Reese shot just 5 of 16 from the field and turned the ball over four times.
Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese took center stage and the Indiana Fever and Atlanta Dream helped ESPN deliver a record TV audience for the WNBA. (Getty Images)
The 2.6 million average smashed the previous cable record of 2.3 million viewers, set by, you guessed it, a Caitlin Clark game.
That one also featured the Clark vs. Reese rivalry and came in June 2024 when Clark's Fever faced Reese's then-team, the Chicago Sky, on ESPN. Clark's WNBA debut against the Connecticut Sun averaged 2.11 million viewers on ESPN2 and now sits behind Fever-Dream and Fever-Sky among WNBA cable broadcasts.
Essentially, Clark just broke a television record that she had already helped set.
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Just five days before the Fever-Dream game, Indiana's matchup against the New York Liberty averaged 2 million viewers on ESPN, which at the time ranked as the third-most-watched regular-season WNBA game ever on cable.
The second game of ESPN's Sunday doubleheader, Portland Fire-Phoenix Mercury, averaged 1.4 million viewers on the night Phoenix retired Diana Taurasi's jersey. ESPN said that was its most-watched regular-season WNBA game ever that didn't feature Indiana. That's the positive spin. The negative spin is that the game lost nearly half the viewers from the massive Clark lead-in audience.
Through 25 games, WNBA broadcasts on ESPN networks are averaging 1.4 million viewers, up 16% year-over-year.
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And when Angel Reese is on the other side, the rivalry adds another layer that casual sports fans clearly find compelling.
At this point, the Caitlin Clark effect isn't a theory.
It's a fact reinforced by almost every new ratings release.
