Games involving Caitlin Clark have been breaking viewership ratings records for an entire year now, as her senior season at Iowa saw networks deliver record ratings and the same has been true for WNBA games since she arrived in Indiana with the Fever.
From ION to CBS to Amazon to ESPN, the league’s various partners have broken their own viewership records when the Fever have been on. However, the only thing sports fans love more than greatness is a rivalry, which is why Clark and the Fever’s budding rivalry with Angel Reese and the Chicago Sky has elevated their games to an even greater level. Their second meeting on CBS became the most watched WNBA game in 23 years, and Sunday’s thriller on ESPN topped that, as Reese leading the Sky to an 88-87 comeback win drew an average of 2.3 million viewers, peaking at 3.3 million.
Once again, that became the most watched WNBA game of the last 23 years, as they have yet to top the season opener in 2001 between the Los Angeles Sparks and Houston Comets, which drew 2.45 million viewers on an NBC Memorial Day broadcast. The Comets were coming off a 4-peat of championships, while Lisa Leslie had become one of the WNBA’s most dominant forces in L.A. — and would lead the Sparks to a title that year. Clark and Reese will meet one more time this season, an August 30 showdown in Chicago after the Olympic break, and one would expect that game will once again draw some big viewership figures.
