Caitlin Clark is almost tripling WNBA average viewership when she plays — and doubling attendance

Recent reports have shown that WNBA star Caitlin Clark has had a massive effect on the league's television viewership, coupled with the fact that she more than doubled the rest of the league's average attendance in a weekend.

According to a report by Outkick, through the first weekend of June 2024, WNBA games that featured Clark had an average of 1.099 million viewers. On the flip side, games without Clark averaged only 414,000 viewers.

The report noted that the 2023 WNBA season averaged 301,000 viewers per game.

It was only in mid-May 2024 that Clark played in the most watched WNBA game in 23 years, averaging 2.13 million viewers on ESPN2. A Memorial Day game on May 28, 2001, between the Los Angeles Sparks and Houston Comets was watched by an average of 2.45 million viewers on NBC.

The ratings have continued to pour in for the WNBA in Clark's games. Her clash with the Chicago Sky that was highlighted by a body check during an inbound play also brought in much higher viewership than average for the league.

Athlon Sports reported the game averaged 1.53 million on ESPN and peaked at 2.19 million. That is about 3.7x the aforementioned average viewership that has been reported.

'Clark by herself is nearly tripling rest of WNBA.'

Sports Illustrated writer Jimmy Traina reported shocking numbers for in-game attendance over the first weekend of June 2024 that showed Clark's games were doubling attendance compared to other games in the league.

Seven games that were played without Clark over that weekend averaged 7,009 fans in attendance. The two games Clark did play in averaged 17,335. It would have taken just three games featuring Clark to eclipse the total attendance of the other seven games combined.

Clark's games totaled 34,675 attendees in her two games versus 49,062 total crowd members in the other seven.

This came after fellow rookie Angel Reese claimed that she was also a cause for the viewership spike because she is happily fulfilling the villain role.

"The reason why we're watching women's basketball is not just because of 1 person. It's because of me, too. I want y'all to realize that," Reese claimed.

Statistics from Across the Timeline showed that Clark's Indiana Fever dominate attendance in nearly every category for home and away games.

For home games, the Fever have the highest average attendance by nearly 5,000, with 16,571. They also have the highest season-low home court attendance by nearly 5,000 ticket holders. In fact, the lowest attendance for a Fever home game in the season is still higher than every other team's average attendance.

In addition, they have the most total attendance for home games by more than 7,000. They do not have the highest single home game attendance in the league, however, but that is because they have maxed out their capacity at the Gainbridge Fieldhouse.

This was also shown by the fact that their top away game attendance and their average away attendance eclipsed all other teams' average home attendance.

In response to Clark's recent viewership boom, podcast host Clay Travis noted that "Clark by herself is nearly tripling rest of WNBA," causing other fans to ask, "Angel Reese was wrong?"

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