Fever set another record as Clark's rising tide lifts rest of WNBA

Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark (22) signs autographs for fans Thursday, May 9, 2024, after the preseason game against the Atlanta Dream at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis. The Indiana Fever defeated the Atlanta Dream, 83-80. © Grace Hollars/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK

The rising tide of Caitlin Clark’s arrival in the WNBA is lifting not only her games, but the rest of the league.

Friday’s Fever-Mystics WNBA regular season game, a matchup of teams that entered a combined 3-20, averaged a 0.6 rating and 1.02 million viewers on ION — the most-watched WNBA game on the Scripps-owned “netlet” that began carrying games last season. The previous high was 724,000 for another Clark game, a late night matchup with the Sparks.

Clark’s Indiana Fever have set viewership records on ION, NBA TV and each of the primary ESPN networks — ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC — this season. After the WNBA went nearly 16 years without a single seven-figure audience, Friday’s game was the sixth this season to cross the million viewer threshold.

Regional action followed with a 0.35 and 528,000, the largest WNBA audience on ION that did not involve Clark.

As expected, the Clark effect is carrying over into games that do not involve the star rookie. Saturday’s Liberty-Sun game averaged a 0.6 rating and 962,000 viewers on ABC, marking the largest audience in 16 years for any WNBA game that did not either involve Clark’s Fever or follow one of their games.

For the current WNBA season, New York’s win ranks seventh in viewership, with each of the top six either involving or following the Fever.

Most-watched WNBA games this season (as of June 9)

In other weekend action, NBA TV averaged a 0.12 and 175,000 for Dream-Sky Saturday evening.

Across all networks — ABC, CBS, ESPN, ESPN2, ION and NBA TV — WNBA games are averaging a 0.40 rating and 667,000 viewers this season. Those figures rise to a 0.56 and 925,000 with NBA TV excluded. WNBA games on Amazon Prime are not Nielsen rated.

Clark’s games (nine total) are averaging a 0.64 and 1.09 million, with that rising to a 0.86 and 1.45 million with NBA TV excluded. Non-Clark games are averaging a 0.26 and 414,000, with that figure rising to a 0.37 and 582,000 with NBA TV excluded.

A complete, across-all-networks average for last year’s WNBA season was not immediately available, but games on the primary networks — excluding NBA TV and ION — averaged 505,000. (The inclusion of NBA TV, which averaged just 46,000 viewers last season, would undoubtedly take that figure lower.)

News: TNT-CFP advertising revenue, Olympics, Sunday Ticket

Jon Lewis

Jon Lewis has been covering the sports media industry on a daily basis since 2006 as the founder and main writer of Sports Media Watch. You can contact him here or on the social media websites X (Twitter) or Bluesky.

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Comments 8

Keith Gartner says:

2 years ago

Any viewership prediction for Fever-Sky today on CBS?
- Jon Lewis says:
  
  2 years ago
  
  I could see it getting to the two million mark. Broadcast network + out of home viewing + all the discussion following their previous meeting.
Leo Markauskas says:

2 years ago

WNBA and USA basketball are experiencing a defining moment after almost 3 decades in the wilderness. The leadership appears to be unaware of that fact. Have there been a multitude of Social Media posts by the players welcoming here to the League? Are we constantly seeing discussion about how welcoming the entire WNBA league is toward this rookie? Did we see congratulatory Posts on Social Media from the other WNBA players when Caitlin scored her first 30 point game versus the Mystics? I live in Brisbane Australia and until recently did not know any WNBA Team names. But now I know, and I live 9,204.14 miles which is the distance from USA to Australia. CC has definitely gone global, and USA should wholly embrace what has happened. Someone should start a petition that demands CC be added to the USA Women’s Basketball team, so that this worldwide phenomenon can properly recognized by the entire world. After all, The Olympic Games is where one expects to see the Best. Lastly, NBC should lead the charge to have CC included, as the Network’s viewership ratings will certainly suffer without CC at the Games.
Daniel Santana says:

2 years ago

It’s CC mostly, but also the rivalry between CC and Reese. Both players are deserving of their popularity. Their rivalry puts them at the next level. Sky at Fever on 06/01 had to be a record setting event. I was excited about it before pre season. It proved worthy of much attention.
Samuel says:

2 years ago

There’s something unimpressive about the numbers to me. I will say I didn’t see the million number for an ION game, that’s pretty good. But the rest if you take away the Clark effect is just okay. I think coming off the NCAA numbers, I expected some games (especially with Clark) to reach at least 3 million and only one has even hit 2 million. The biggest disappointment was the Fever-Liberty game in the beginning on ABC that some people were projecting 5 million. The league is in way better shape than its been in but let’s see how these numbers hold up as people realize the Fever games are irrelevant in the second half and Clark isn’t fully living up to the hype yet.
Doug Rice says:

2 years ago

The biggest non-Fever games may be record-setting, but it doesn’t appear that the average growth in viewership of the non-Fever games is any higher than it was last year. From 2022-2023, it grew 21% to 505K—about 80K average viewers, which is the same growth this year over last year. So, it would seem to me that—on average—people who started watching because of Caitlin Clark really are only watching because of Caitlin Clark. Am I wrong? Source: https://www.wnba.com/news/2023-season-record-breaking-success-recap
- Johnnie says:
  
  2 years ago
  
  No. You are not wrong!
Hello Larry says:

2 years ago

OH WOW!!!! That’s huge for ION, I feel like a lot of people have just discovered that network through Caitlin Clark over these past two games. This game was featured in a better slot than the Sparks game before. CC is box office and continues to grow women’s basketball and the WNBA. Getting over 1 million viewers on that network in primetime is huge. ION did a great job investing into women’s sports on Fridays with WNBA and NWSL on Saturdays.
I keep saying this, but Mitch Mortaza for whatever can’t get that women’s football league that used to be the lingerie league a decent television deal. That would be such a popular league if it ever had a decent broadcast deal. He should be looking at this and get something setup with ION in the future for his league. This is a growing network, hit the wave now while it’s early.
Also, the other games games did a nice job with retention behind CC, I remember when the WNBA could rarely crack 300k on ION, so this is huge. The Liberty-Sun game has the CC effect as well getting almost a million viewers. The awareness is up on the whole league now, and people are going out of their way to checkout games.