WNBA Playoff Ratings Down Nearly 50 Percent Without Caitlin Clark, Indiana Fever

To the surprise of no one, the WNBA playoffs didn’t draw very good ratings on Sunday, since Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever were eliminated.

The Connecticut Sun defeated the Fever in the first round, two games to zero in the three-game series. The league obviously continues on from here, but at least half of the fans have already moved on to other things, apparently. 

To the surprise of no one, the WNBA playoffs didn’t draw very good ratings on Sunday, since Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever were eliminated.

(Erica Denhoff/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)

The New York Liberty defeated the Las Vegas Ace in the first game of their best-of-five second round series. Later, the Sun beat the Minnesota Lynx. 

The Aces-Liberty matchup started at 3 p.m. ET on ABC and the Sun-Lynx contest began at 8:30 on ESPN.

Obviously, both games went up against NFL football. 

The ABC matchup drew an average of 929,000 viewers, which is a very good number for the WNBA. However, that was down nearly 50 percent from last Sunday’s Fever-Sun contest. 

Sun-Lynx drew just more than 650,000. 

Not only was viewership down, but attendance was, as well. The Sun-Lynx match drew 8,500 fans. That’s fewer than 50 percent of the total capacity of the Target Center in Minneapolis (20,000). 

The Liberty-Aces match at the Barclays Center did better in terms of attendance, but still didn’t sell out one of the most highly-anticipated playoff series this season between two teams expected to compete for the WNBA Championship. 

According to ESPN, the attendance was 14,015 fans, just below 75 percent capacity of the arena. 

Going against NFL football wasn’t a huge problem for Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever, who managed to draw nearly two million viewers last Sunday in Clark’s playoff debut against Connecticut. 

That game started at the same time (3 p.m.) and aired on the same network (ABC) as the Aces-Liberty matchup. 

According to Sports Media Watch, the Fever’s game one loss at Connecticut averaged 1.84 million viewers, which was the largest viewership for a WNBA playoff game since 2000 and nearly doubled the Aces-Liberty game. 

Of course, that record was broken a few days later when the Sun eliminated the Fever on Wednesday in front of an average of 2.54 million viewers, the biggest playoff audience in more than 25 years. 

Sunday’s Aces-Liberty WNBA playoff game didn’t draw nearly as many TV viewers as the Indiana Fever and Caitlin Clark drew one week prior.

(Evan Yu/NBAE via Getty Images)

This news shouldn’t surprise anyone who is paying attention. Caitlin Clark is the biggest draw in the WNBA, and it’s not particularly close. 

The league set massive viewership records all season and virtually every game that topped one million viewers featured the Indiana Fever and Clark. 

Without her in the WNBA playoffs, most sports fans are back to their regularly-scheduled programming: football. 

The good news for the league is that drawing nearly one million viewers without Clark is no small feat. However, there’s clearly a carry-over from the “Caitlin Clark Effect.” 

Here’s the bad news: the MLB playoffs started on Tuesday and the NBA and NHL are nearing a return to play. 

This is already a crowded time on the sports calendar and without Caitlin Clark, the WNBA figures to take a backseat, like it has every year prior to this one.