If there was any remaining question about the Caitlin Clark effect, the Fever star attracted an audience of more than one million viewers to watch a WNBA preseason game.
Sunday’s WNBA preseason game between the Indiana Fever and Brazilian national team, which took place from Clark’s alma mater at Iowa, averaged 1.3 million viewers on ESPN — a 13% increase over the network’s regular season average last year. Viewership exceeded Game 1 of last year’s Liberty-Lynx WNBA Finals (1.14M).
Indiana’s blowout win, which peaked with 1.6 million viewers, was the 34th WNBA telecast in the past year to average a seven-figure audience — with Clark having figured in 26. Prior to Clark being drafted last year, no WNBA telecast had attracted a million viewers since 2008.
By comparison, no NBA, NHL or Major League Baseball preseason games have averaged as large an audience since 2018, when a Warriors-Lakers game on ESPN averaged 1.98 million in LeBron James’ first year with the Lakers. No MLB Spring Training game has ever drawn as many viewers on the ESPN networks, topping out at 912,000 for a 2004 Yankees-Phillies game.
On Friday, ION averaged 406,000 for Wings-Aces — marking the debut of #1 overall pick Paige Bueckers — and 305,000 for the Sky against the same Brazilian national team. Though below the network’s regular season average a year ago (670K), viewership increased 40 and 15 percent respectively from the network’s season-opening windows last May.
Prior to this year, the only record of a WNBA preseason game being carried on national television was a 2019 matchup of the New York Liberty and Chinese national team on ESPNews.
