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.)
