Caitlin Clark has helped take NCAA women’s basketball to unprecedented heights of popularity.
Now the WNBA appears ready to see if the University of Iowa superstar can do the same at the professional level.
Weeks before leading Iowa to its second straight NCAA championship game, Clark announced her intention to enter the WNBA draft next week. Naturally, college basketball’s all-time leading scorer is widely expected to be selected No. 1 overall, a pick that belongs to the Indiana Fever.
Even though the Fever won a mere 13 games last season, they will play 36 of their 40 games this year in front of a national audience, according to the television and streaming schedule released by the WNBA on Wednesday. That includes eight games on ABC, ESPN or ESPN2, eight on ION, three on CBS or CBS Sports, 13 on NBA TV and four on Prime Video.
That’s more national broadcasts or streams than any other team, including the two-time defending champion Las Vegas Aces (35) and the 2023 Commissioner’s Cup-winning New York Liberty (31), who also feature last year’s league MVP, Breanna Stewart.
Sure, there’s probably some excitement to see what Clark, assuming she’s drafted by Indiana, can do on the same team as Aliyah Boston, who was the WNBA Rookie of the Year after going No. 1 overall to the Fever in 2023. But it’s also likely that the WNBA and its partners are hoping Clark can deliver the same kind of ratings she did over the last couple of weeks during March Madness.
The last three games played by Clark and the Hawkeyes all set viewing records for women’s college basketball — 12.3 million viewers watched their Elite Eight win over Louisiana State, 14.2 million watched their Final Four win over Connecticut and 18.7 million watched their loss to South Carolina in the championship game. All three contests were broadcast on ESPN.
The championship game garnered more viewers than its men’s counterpart — Connecticut’s win over Purdue on Monday averaged 14.8 million viewers on TNT and TBS — for the first time and was the highest-rated basketball game, college or pro, since 2019.
