Caitlin Clark's rookie season with the Indiana Fever was unlike any the WNBA has ever seen. As she became famous, fans, many of whom had never watched a WNBA game before, flocked to cheer her on.
While Clark drew support from a record number of ticket holders, he also drew numerous flagrant fouls and consistent criticism from other WNBA coaches and players.
Still, there's no denying what Clark did for the league, and the numbers prove that No. 22 was a monster of a genius.
From the beginning, Clark became a traveling spectacle. She drew a sellout crowd in her professional debut against the Connecticut Sun at Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut.
In fact, compared to his next home game, coach Clark's ticket prices went up. The cheapest seat available for Clark's debut game was $74, but for the next game in which Clark did not appear, it was $13.
This created a phenomenon known as the Caitlin Clark effect, and ticket prices quickly reflected it.
At Brooklyn's Barclays Center, prices rose 300% from $21 to $84 when Clark rolled into town.
Seattle saw a 169% increase, and Las Vegas saw the most unusual increase. The difference in price between Ace's matches before and after Clark was a whopping 2,200%. Admission was only $4, compared to $92.
Clark had a huge impact on ticket prices in the first month, with ticket prices averaging at least $74 for games where she showcased her skills. On average, teams charge just $21.80 for their next home game. This is a 241% increase league-wide.
attendance
The increase in ticket prices was caused by increased attendance, and Clark completely turned the league on its head.
By the second month, she had already doubled attendance at WNBA games. According to analysis conducted after the first weekend in June, Clark played two games with an average attendance of 17,335. Seven other games without Clark that weekend drew an average attendance of just 7,009.
The Clark Effect was so unstoppable that it eventually spread throughout the league like a fever.
According to stats tracker beyond the timelineattendance was affected across the board in terms of league average, peak attendance, and season total. In 2024, six teams averaged more than 10,000 fans per game, but no team achieved that feat in 2023. Similarly, six teams had higher average attendance in 2024 than the highest grossing team in 2023. Some teams, like the Atlanta Dream, increased their average attendance by more than 1,700 people per game. Additionally, only one WNBA team averaged fewer than 5,000 fans per game in 2024, compared to four in 2023.
In terms of season totals, Clark's Indiana Fever drew impressive attendance. The team's total attendance quadrupled, increasing from 81,336 in 2023 to 340,715 in 2024. This created a trickle-down effect, resulting in eight teams having more total season attendance than the No. 1 team in 2023. Two more teams narrowly missed out on qualifying. They beat the top teams from 2023 and recorded an astonishing turnaround in the league in terms of total attendance.
In one of many record-setting nights, Clark played in the most attended game in WNBA history against the Washington Mystics. The September 19th game drew 20,711 spectators. In 2023, the game with the highest number of spectators was 17,406.
In June, Clark broke the 2023 attendance record just by existing. When the Clarks Fever visited the Atlanta Dream, demand for tickets was so high that the game was moved to Atlanta's Phillips Arena, home of the NBA's Atlanta Hawks. The Dream's typical venue, the Gateway Center Arena in College Park, Georgia, has a capacity of just 3,500 people. This broke the Dream's attendance record, breaking the team's first game attendance of 11,609 in 2008, and also breaking the WNBA's highest attendance record in 2023.
Viewership rating
Through the first weekend in June, WNBA games featuring Clark averaged 1.099 million viewers. Conversely, games without Clark averaged just 414,000 viewers.
At this point, Clark had already played in the most-watched WNBA game in 23 years, which drew 2.13 million viewers on ESPN2.
She surpassed that number four times over the course of the season, breaking the single-game viewership record (2.45 million viewers) that had been held since Memorial Day 2001.
In a playoff game against the Connecticut Sun on September 25, her record-breaking game drew 2.54 million viewers.
It showed how important Clark's presence was to television viewers, but ratings quickly dropped after the Fever were eliminated in the playoffs.
On September 29th, the first game of the next playoff round between the New York Liberty and Las Vegas Aces drew only 929,000 fans despite being a rematch of the 2023 WNBA Finals. . At the same time, the first semifinal game between the Minnesota Lynx and the Connecticut Sun drew approximately 650,000 viewers.
Clark's first playoff game was a win in both games and averaged 1.84 million viewers. In fact, the top 16 most-watched WNBA games of 2024 all featured Clark. Each had more than 1.3 million viewers.
Of the games without Clark on screen, only four reached the one million viewer mark. Still, all WNBA cable affiliates saw significant growth in 2024 thanks to her popularity.
As an evaluation outlet sports notes Broadcast partners noted that the average number likely surprised everyone. ESPN reportedly averaged 1.2 million viewers for WNBA games, an increase of 170% compared to 2023 (454,000).
On the ION Network, the game's viewership increased by 133% in 2023, with seven broadcasts averaging over 1 million viewers.
A total of 23 league games reached more than 1 million viewers in a season, which was also a record.
As for the playoffs, the Liberty vs. Aces playoff game, while not matching Clark's first-round numbers, was still the most-watched WNBA semifinal in the past 22 years.
complaint
The 2024 NBA season not only put Clark's name on the map, but also elevated the status of many other players. Unfortunately, many of those players became known for their negative reactions to their newfound stardom.
The increase in viewership seemed to have increased the expectations of the athletes, who soon began demanding the same luxuries afforded to Clark and his record-setting team.
As the season began, Chicago Sky rookie Angel Reese complained to the internet about the team not having a luxury private jet. Reese posted a photo with the caption, “I hope this is one of the last commercial flights operated by Chicago Sky.”
Below that, he wrote, “Practicing gratitude and patience as the league implements charter flights for all teams.”
Just one week later, Phoenix Mercury guard Sophie Cunningham complained that the team's charter flight was not large enough to carry all the players' desired luggage.
“Our bags and some staff cannot fly together because our charter is too small, while other teams get bigger planes. I want to talk about it. Yeah, it's right there.”
Even though Clark has millions of supporters and her Indiana Fever has increased attendance and viewership for all of her games, players believe in fairness in their sport. It seemed like there was.
This marketing difference certainly affected other players as well, and they immediately started thinking about the reasons for Clark's popularity. Las Vegas Aces star A'ja Wilson said Clark's support was primarily due to her race, which was a “huge” factor in her popularity.
“It's actually because, as a black woman, you can be on top of your game, but maybe that's not what you want people to see,” Wilson theorized.
Wilson went on to argue that black women are not considered marketable and continue to be ignored no matter what they accomplish.
That theory completely fell apart when Wilson signed a signature shoe deal with Nike. She also signed a deal with Gatorade that same week. Because the contract was signed before her interviews were published, she could not claim that they were a reactionary move.
Los Angeles Sparks forward Cameron Brink took a different approach to the popularity issue and appears to have shot himself in the foot a few weeks later. Brink was trying to argue that race was a factor in WNBA players' popularity, but inadvertently called his teammates too ugly to sell.
“I acknowledge that young white players in the league have privilege. It's not necessarily true, but there's a privilege that we inherently have, and a privilege that appears feminine. Some of my teammates Some people are masculine,” Brink argued. “Some of my teammates call them pronouns,” she stumbled.
The 6-foot-4 player then chastised himself for dressing in “feminine” clothing, saying other players should be popular even though they look more masculine.
“I would like to be more accepted. [masculine women, pronoun users] We don't just have people support us because of the way we look. I like to dress feminine so I know I might be feeding into that, but that's just me. Everyone wants to be accepted, not just be noticed for their appearance. ”
future
There is no denying that Clark has opened many doors for his colleagues. Whether through sheer attention or the luxuries her teammates enjoy, she has greatly elevated her standing in the league.
For example, Las Vegas Aces players received $100,000 in sponsorships for seemingly no reason. Although the team has several popular players who are not as popular as Clark, they finished fourth in the standings. However, the city of Las Vegas saw fit to award sponsorship contracts to the women, ignoring the actual requirements.
The contract terms offered by the city were simple: “Just play'' and “Represent Vegas.''
The players laughed as they earned $200,000 over two years. None of this would have been possible without Clark. Nor does he have the privilege of hesitating when it comes to reporting opportunities. Before Clark, it would have been unheard of for a WNBA player to intentionally avoid a media scrum, but that's exactly what happened in 2024.
WNBA players have become so popular that the league changed its media usage rules to allow teams to exempt players in certain situations. This was probably seen as a way to keep players like Chicago's Reese from digging themselves too deep. That's because she was exempted from the team as soon as the rules started. The lease is fined in early June for violating media availability rules.
The future success of the WNBA will be in the management of these players. Despite his huge rise in popularity, players and coaches around the league have a big problem with how they talk about Clark.
WNBA owner Renee Montgomery called Clark's fans racist and sexist, and other players criticized them for being “too sensitive.”
Internal reporters take issue with fans wearing MAGA hats, claiming their presence makes them feel “dangerous,” while calling heckling other players over their press-on nails “racist.” insisted.
Because of a culture that turned away new fans, the WNBA managed to turn a monumental year into a $50 million loss. That's five times the amount the league typically loses, even with subsidies from the NBA.
Even if there is visible success, I don't think Clark's presence alone will bring the league into the black, and on the other hand, eliminating huge expenses such as private planes seems like something the league would not dare to do. appear.
The WNBA's best bet is to remind its players that minor league baseball teams, which actually make a profit, are getting paid less and get on the bus.
