How Caitlin Clark’s WNBA playoff debut broke ratings records and outperformed NFL Sunday

The effect that Caitlin Clark has had on the WNBA and its audience can’t be overstated and what is even more impressive is that it shows no signs of dissipating. With that said it will be interesting to see how the league goes forward with an undoubtedly larger budget to work with.

Caitlin Clark’s playoff debut outshines NFL while making history

It’s worth noting that even when Caitlin Clark doesn’t have a good night, people want to see her play. If there were any doubts about that, the ratings that her postseason debut pulled in over the weekend completely dispel them. This past Sunday, Clark and the Indiana Fever took on the Connecticut Sun in Game 1 of their WNBA Playoff series. The Game itself tipped off at 3:00 p.m. that day which is important to note as it was in direct comPetition with NFL’s afternoon Game.

What was the result? The Fever and Sun played to a television audience that was the largest the WNBA has seen in decades. To be clear, an average of 1.84 million people tuned in to watch Clark and Co. despite the fact that the game actually went very badly, with the Fever conceding a blowout 93-69 loss, and Clark struggling to put anything together, scoring just 11 points on 4-of-17 shooting and even earning herself a black eye. Yet, that seemingly had no effect on viewers as the game was the highest-rated WNBA playoff game since the 2000 WNBA Finals and the most-watched non-Finals game since 1999.

Of course, when it comes to numbers the ones that really matter to Clark and her team are the ones on the scoreboard. With that, the Fever and their young star will have to be better when they take on the Sun in Game 2 of the series on Wednesday night but that’s something head coach Christie Sides knows all too well. “These guys are gonna shoot the ball a lot better on Wednesday, and that’s gonna make a huge difference,” Sides said. “The first three quarters we battled, I think we got rattled in the third a little bit when they started hitting some shots.”

Regardless, expect to see similar ratings on Wednesday night if not better as the Fever looks to turn things around by forcing a Game 3 - it’s best of three series. Truthfully, if they manage to do so then there is really no way to anticipate how high numbers could go from there. If Clark’s journey to the WNBA and her subsequent introduction is any metric to go by, we’re about to see some historic figures. That said, we imagine the Fever and Clark would forgo the attention in exchange for a deep post-season run. Stay tuned!