The NFL is king when it comes to viewership.
Pro football dominates on any day that it airs.
But the NFL got ratings competition from the last place it expected.
Caitlin Clark vs. the NFL
NFL ratings remain high no matter where games get aired.
The NFL is the highest-rated broadcast on several different networks.
However, the NFL got a little bit of competition from a place nobody saw coming: the WNBA.
Women’s basketball sensation Caitlin Clark shattered records during her college career with the Iowa Hawkeyes.
She left college as the NCAA all-time leading scorer, and she also finished fourth in all-time assists.
Clark’s popularity has translated to the WNBA, as she has been a big box office draw in the league.
Her playoff debut with the Indiana Fever was one of the most-watched WNBA games in league history.
Sports Media Watch reported, “Despite airing in the thick of an NFL Sunday, Caitlin Clark’s playoff debut still delivered a milestone audience for the WNBA. Sunday’s Fever-Sun first round WNBA playoff Game 1 averaged 1.84 million viewers on ABC, marking the largest WNBA playoff audience in any round since the deciding Game 2 of the 2000 WNBA Finals (Liberty-Comets: 2.12M), and the most-watched outside of the WNBA Finals since Game 2 of the Sparks-Comets 1999 Western Conference Final (2.62M).”
The Houston Comets do not even exist as a franchise anymore, and television ratings have gone down across the board in the past 25 years because viewership has been fragmented by so many different viewing options.
Sports Media Watch continued, “Indiana’s blowout loss was the most-watched WNBA game to ever air on an NFL Sunday, surpassing Game 2 of the 2003 WNBA Finals (Sparks-Shock: 1.28M).”
Clark carrying an entire league
Clark has been the unique figure who has been able to bring in new fans to the WNBA.
The league has never turned a profit and has been desperate for a transcendent star.
Sports Media Watch added, “It was the 24th WNBA game this season to cross the million-viewer threshold (and 25th total telecast including the WNBA Draft), with Caitlin Clark having played in all-but-three (20 Fever games and the WNBA All-Star Game). Prior to this season, the record for million-viewer audiences in a WNBA season was 15 in 1998. No game had hit the million-viewer mark since 2008.”
The other playoff games, however, were unable to crack 500,000 viewers.
The two-time defending champion Las Vegas Aces only drew 426,000 viewers against the Seattle Storm.
That said, the numbers were still an improvement over previous years.
Sports Media Watch concluded that the ratings for the other games “cruised past the eight other first round openers under the current WNBA playoff format that began in 2022 — the most-watched of which was Mercury-Aces Game 1 two years ago (398K). It bears noting that those previous first round openers aired midweek and primarily on ESPN2.”
The WNBA needs to capitalize on the newfound attention spurred by Clark.
Stay tuned to Unmuzzled News for any updates to this ongoing story.
