In her WNBA debut, Caitlin Clark smashes yet another record for women’s basketball.
At a moment, with Caitlin Clark at the forefront. While the former Iowa Hawkeye’s on-court performance indicated that she will have a learning curve in her rookie season, the TV ratings demonstrated that Clark’s presence alone has already propelled the WNBA to new heights.
The No. 1 overall pick of the Indiana Fever made her regular-season debut on Tuesday night.
According to ESPN, the Connecticut Sun vs. Clark’s Indiana Fever game broke a record for network ratings that had been in place for over 20 years.
At its peak, the game brought in 2.3 million people, with an average of over 2.1 million watching on ESPN2, ESPN+, and Disney+. Compared to the previous record-holder, a 2004 game that included Diana Taurasi’s professional debut with the Phoenix Mercury, this was a significant increase of almost 60% in viewership.
In addition to demonstrating why Clark is the most anticipated rookie in WNBA history, her performance also hinted at how much harder the going will be for her in the professional ranks than it was for her in college.
Despite leading the Fever with 20 points, Clark was incredibly inefficient when scoring, largely due to Dijonai Carrington’s and her Sun teammates’ defense, which limited Clark to just 5–15 shooting from the field and 10 turnovers. The Fever lost 92–71, and Clark had a plus-minus of minus–13 at the end of the game.
Although Clark’s transformation of the Fever into winners may take some time, her influence on the WNBA has already been profound.
Indiana was in a position to choose Clark in the first place because they were the last team in the Eastern Conference to finish last year. The team’s 13–27 record was the second-worst in the league (and the opposite of the Sun’s 27–13 record), but even that was a significant improvement over the Fever’s 5-31 record from the previous season.
The 2023 WNBA Rookie of the Year, Aliyah Boston, a fellow No. 1 overall pick, helped Indiana more than double its win total last season. With Clark joining the mix, even better things should be in store for the franchise in the near future. The Fever haven’t made the playoffs since 2016.
