Basketball games featuring superstar Caitlin Clark are getting nationally televised more than defending WNBA champions.
As many as six games with the Indiana Fever have been moved to larger venues, per Fox News, with the team set to play 41 out of their scheduled 44 games on national television this season.
“It’s the most nationally televised games for any team in the league, even more than the reigning champion New York Liberty, who will have 33 games shown on national TV,” added the report.
At least one WNBA player, Napheesa Collier of the Minnesota Lynx, called it “crazy.”
“Obviously, people want to watch Caitlin play, and you have to put the people on TV that people want to see. But, at the same time, there are stars all over the league, and you want good basketball, as well,” Collier said on ESPN’s First Take. “Obviously, Indiana … will be a great team, but to not have the defending champs on TV more, I think it’s kind of crazy.”
Collier added that she did not want to see nationally televised games taken from Indiana but hoped other teams would be given a chance at the spotlight.
“It doesn’t have to be where you’re taking games away from Indiana, but I think you can raise the level of TV games for the other teams as well. … [The Fever] should have those amount of games on TV on primetime, but I think other teams should have more than what they have,” said Collier.
As Breitbart News reported in June of last year, then-rookie star Caitlin Clark’s presence made such an impression on the WNBA that its ratings and attendance were boosted to record numbers in the first month of the new season.
“Roughly 400,000 fans attended games across the WNBA during May, making the largest attendance in 26 years for the opening month of a season, and the league boasted that more than half of all WNBA games had been sellouts, which was a 156% increase from the prior year,” reported the New York Post.
Across the country, WNBA arenas reported filling up to 94% capacity, with WNBA games averaging 1.32 million viewers across the big networks ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and CBS. In 2023, the WNBA averaged 462,000 viewers.
“What’s happening now in women’s basketball is confirmation of what we’ve always known: The demand is there, and women’s sports is a valuable investment,” Chief Growth Officer Colie Edison said in a statement at the time. “We’re encouraged by growing engagement across all our verticals, especially as we welcome new and diverse audiences into our fandom. The WNBA continues to experience sustained growth as our league embraces this heightened momentum.”
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