The Caitlin Clark experience entered a new phase Sunday when the Indiana Fever began what could be the highest-profile playoff run in WNBA history. “Run” in this instance could mean as few as two games, as the first round of the WNBA Playoffs is best-of-three.
Clark’s historic rookie season could come to an end as soon as Wednesday, when Indiana tries to bounce back from a 24-point Game 1 defeat. The Fever are not even guaranteed a home game in the series, as the lower seed plays the first two on the road before potentially hosting a winner-take-all Game 3.
Of course, for Clark, every game is a home game, played in front of crowds that are far in excess of what the actual home team usually draws. Even on Sunday, there was a vocal Fever contingent in the crowd, at least until Connecticut pulled away — the latest example of her outsized impact on the league.
Clarkonomics
“I call it Clarkonomics,” Fever analyst and Basketball Hall of Famer Debbie Antonelli said on the latest edition of the Sports Media Watch Podcast. “It is defined by attendance, ratings, the — no pun intended — ‘fever’ around the game. I’ve been in every WNBA arena this summer. Most of the arenas, or half of them, are full of Fever fans. There’s a lot of number 22s running around.”
Attendance figures are one thing, but if there is any measure that defines the Clark experience, it is the television ratings. Each of the league’s network partners (ESPN/ABC, CBS and ION) scored a triple-digit increase in viewership this season to a new record-high. Prior to this season, the WNBA had not had a single million-viewer audience since Candace Parker’s career debut in 2008. This year, it had 23 (24 including the Draft) — and counting, depending on how long Indiana can remain in the postseason.
Clark has been the driving force behind the growth, having played in all-but-three of the million viewer games. Prior to this season, the all-time record for seven-figure audiences in a WNBA season was 15 in 1998; Clark alone topped that mark this season.
Fever games averaged 1.18 million viewers across all networks and 1.59 million if one excludes NBA TV, which is in fewer than 40 million homes. That exceeds what San Antonio Spurs games (featuring much-hyped NBA #1 pick Victor Wembanyama) averaged on national television during the 2023-24 regular season (1.01 million overall, 1.39 million excluding NBA TV). It also topped the average for the big-market Philadelphia 76ers (1.08 million, 1.43 million sans-NBA TV).
Though short of the Lakers (1.66M, 2.12M sans-NBA TV), Warriors (1.52M, 1.96M sans-NBA TV), Celtics (1.34M, 1.74M sans-NBA TV) and Knicks (1.33M, 1.60M sans-NBA TV), it is a testament to Clark’s impact that the Fever are closer to those highest-profile NBA teams than to the rest of the WNBA.
Is the Clark Show a Solo Act?
The Clark effect has become a somewhat complicated topic. There is no question she is unambiguously the biggest ratings driver in the history of the WNBA, and arguably the biggest in all of sports since Tiger Woods. The league’s success this season is principally the result of her popularity. Had she not entered the draft this season, there is little if any chance that the historic milestones in viewership and attendance would have occurred.
Yet the sentiment espoused in some corners this season is not that the WNBA would be markedly less popular without Clark — which goes without saying — but that it would be nothing without her, has no value independent of her, and none of the players past or present matter except for her. (Players have unsurprisingly chafed at such suggestions, and the Clark phenomenon generally, no doubt contributing to the cold shoulder she received at times this season.)
The reality is that the WNBA was making progress — if incrementally — before Clark. Viewership was trending up, not to seven-figures, but enough to attract new media partners CBS in 2019 and Scripps Sports (ION) in 2023. Both companies saw potential in the league, even when a good viewership number was one in the 700,000 range.
“We looked at the WNBA the way we look at all the sport properties that we’re involved with in terms of what makes them successful,” CBS Sports EVP/programming Dan Weinberg told SMW last week. “We want to see a dynamic product on the field, on the court. Check. We want to see a loyal and a growing fan base, in this case, one that brings a more diverse, younger, more female audience to CBS. Check. One that has stars. Obviously, Caitlin Clark is a huge star, but the league has had stars long before Caitlin Clark was drafted, that they’ve been building around and growing. So, a lot of boxes get checked when you stop and look at the upward trajectory of the WNBA today in 2024, but certainly in 2019, when we brought our partnership together.”
Like CBS, ION viewed the league as a growth property. “We were the first ones in to make a commitment to the WNBA, before there was any Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Cameron Brink, inside of the league,” Scripps Sports president Brian Lawlor said on the Sports Media Watch Podcast. “We spent a lot of time looking at what rights would be available. We didn’t want to just sort of come into something that was already established. We really felt like we had a platform that could help something grow. And all of our research indicated that there was a growing interest in women’s sports.”
That two networks wanted the pre-Clark WNBA — particularly two networks without NBA rights — should not be taken for granted. It was not so long ago that the league had to overcome furious opposition from its network partner.
Where the WNBA is Coming From
In the Jim Miller and Tom Shales book “Those Guys Have All the Fun,” former ESPN executive Mark Shapiro was blunt about the clashes he and then-NBA commissioner David Stern had over the airing of WNBA games in the early 2000s: “He wanted the WNBA on the air. I told him the WNBA stinks, it doesn’t rate, and I didn’t want it. No one watches it. Men don’t watch it. Women don’t watch it! My goal was to get it off the air. … I wanted it off altogether, but he went above me to [ESPN president] George [Bodenheimer] — and, I think, [Disney CEO Bob] Iger — and won. It was one of the few times George ever overruled me. At least I got it put on ESPN2, where it couldn’t hurt us.”
The WNBA’s banishment to ESPN2 — after benefiting from regular windows on NBC and ESPN — was the beginning of its dark ages, when viewership tanked, every team jersey was the same except for color (and the ad on the front), and playoff games were being moved to college campuses because Disney on Ice held precedence. (A WNBA title was once clinched at the convocation center of Eastern Michigan.) The only attention the league got was as the butt of jokes on network sitcoms.
It took nearly 20 years for the league to merely recover to the point where it was viewed as having potential. It may well have continued to grow without Clark. The difference she has made is not between survival and failure, but between gradual growth and a level of cultural relevance that the league realistically may never have reached without her. From baby steps to a full sprint.
“It is a cliche about rising tides,” Antonelli said. “Everybody’s brand is better. Everyone’s making money, and you can thank Clarkonomics for it, because she’s a big part of it. She’s not the only reason. She’s not the savior. It’s not that. She’s the greatest disruptor in the ecosystem our game has ever seen, and we all should be grateful for that.”
Savior Complexity
Clark as disruptor, rather than savior, may be the best way to explain her impact on the league. The WNBA was on solid ground before her arrival, an established niche sport on par with the trendier NWSL. (Not necessarily a good thing, considering the relative popularity of basketball versus domestic soccer.) It did not need saving, but there was a ceiling on how far it could realistically go. Now it is on a trajectory not even the most optimistic observer could have projected a year ago, and the rising tide has not just lifted the Fever.
A handful of non-Clark games drew audiences this season that would have constituted milestones in prior years. An August matchup of Las Vegas and Chicago, won by the Aces on an A’ja Wilson buzzer-beater, averaged 1.22 million on CBS — the most-watched game all season that did not feature Clark on the court or as a lead-in. The prior month, a matchup of Phoenix and Connecticut drew a combined 1.09 million on ABC and ESPN2. In June, a WNBA Finals rematch of the Aces and Liberty drew 996,000 on ABC, one week after a matchup of the Liberty and Sun drew 962,000. Prior to this season, all of those figures would have ranked as the largest for a WNBA game since 2008. Last year’s most-watched WNBA game, by contrast, was Game 4 of the Finals at fewer than 900,000.
“There were several weeks where [ION] had 700,000 viewers and we didn’t have any Indiana game, which told me the entire league is benefiting from this rise in interest in professional women’s basketball,” Lawlor said.
The debate over Clark’s impact ultimately centers on whether she is bigger than the league. She quite clearly is, uncomfortable as that may be for veterans of a 27-year-old league to admit about a rookie. Tiger Woods was bigger than golf, Venus and Serena were bigger than tennis. As with those prior examples, however, Clark is also making the game bigger.
“There is more outside media in terms of what had been, you know, like our little basketball bubble of media and people that have covered our game,” Antonelli said. “Now, there’s so many others coming to our game, paying attention — those that have very high social media platforms, to all the major news networks covering us, and not just sport news. So that’s what we wanted, we wanted that. The W, the players, they wanted better quality of life, they wanted more money. They wanted charter flights. The evaluation of franchises has significantly increased. Expansion is significantly coming forward. All these things are generated by more attention, more eyeballs, and it’s going to mean more money for everyone, so everyone’s going to benefit.”
The WNBA could have remained in its pre-Clark status quo and been fine. The charter flights were coming eventually. It had finally — finally — gotten around to expansion. There was going to be more TV money no matter what. The Clark effect has meant charter flights immediately, expansion to two additional cities, a tripling of rights fees — not even counting CBS and Scripps/ION, both of whom are expected to sign additional deals for as much as a combined $100 million per year. (CBS declined comment, but Scripps’ Lawlor told SMW that “we expect that we’ll be able to have a long-term agreement with the WNBA.”)
What may have otherwise taken years has instead taken months. The WNBA is now operating on a vastly accelerated timeline, and given what has occurred in just one season of play, there is really no telling what further milestones the Clark era has in store.
There is more to the WNBA than Caitlin Clark, but there will be so much more for the WNBA because of Caitlin Clark.
