By The Caitlin Clark effect cooled a bit on Saturday, but the Fever rookie still helped the WNBA to one of its largest audiences in more than two decades.
Saturday’s Fever-Liberty WNBA regular season game averaged a 1.1 rating and 1.71 million viewers on ABC, trailing only Clark’s professional debut on ESPN2 last Tuesday (1.2, 2.12M) as the most-watched WNBA game in 22 years — since Sparks-Comets on NBC Memorial Day 2002 (1.80M).
The game snapped a streak of four-straight Caitlin Clark games to set viewership records. Her final three games in college were the most-watched women’s college basketball games ever measured by Nielsen and her first WNBA game was the league’s most-watched since 2001.
In the second half of the ABC doubleheader, Sparks-Aces averaged a 0.8 and 1.34 million — the most-watched WNBA game sans-Caitlin Clark since Diana Taurasi’s career debut on ABC 20 years ago (Mercury-Sun: 1.43M). The second half of the doubleheader declined only 22% from its lead-in, a marked shift from Tuesday, when the Mercury-Aces nightcap plunged 78% from Clark’s debut.
Three WNBA games this season have topped the million viewer mark, after the league went nearly sixteen years without a single seven-figure audience.
Both ABC games Saturday outdrew the primetime Major League Baseball window on FOX (0.6, 1.10M), with the caveat that one of the network’s scheduled regional games was rained out.
In other WNBA action, ION averaged a 0.20 and 290,000 for Mystics-Sun and a 0.18 and 266,000 for Storm-Lynx on Friday night. Figures for the network’s opening games last season were not immediately available. NBA TV chipped in a 0.06 and 108,000 for Dream-Mercury and a 0.06 an 101,000 for Sky-Wings on Saturday night.
