Caitlin Clark, Fever's TV ratings set WNBA up for historic 2025 season

The most impressive number from the Indiana Fever's exhibition win over the Brazil women's national team on May 4 wasn't the 108-44 score or superstar guard Caitlin Clark's 16 points on 6-of-10 shooting in just 19 minutes of play. It was the 1.2 million viewers who tuned in for the preseason game broadcast on ESPN.

According to The Athletic, the only other preseason basketball games to garner over a million viewers on ESPN were the Cleveland Cavaliers against the Chicago Bulls in 2017 (1.4 million viewers) and the Golden State Warriors against the Los Angeles Lakers in 2018 (2 million viewers). Both games involved LeBron James. 

It's undeniable that Clark is a mainstream sports star and now a huge TV draw. ESPN certainly believes so, as 41 of the Fever's 44 regular-season games will be nationally televised or streamed in the upcoming WNBA season. 

This decision to give the Fever so many primetime slots in 2025 builds off the 2024 season's record-breaking numbers, which included the top 11 most-watched women's basketball games of all time, according to the WNBA. Four of these 11 games featured the Indiana Fever, led by Clark.

The 2024 season also saw an infusion of new top stars into the WNBA. Clark was drafted No. 1 overall, and the Chicago Sky picked Louisiana State University women's basketball star Angel Reese at No. 7 in the draft. Per the WNBA, the 2024 season (regular season and postseason) averaged 1.2 million viewers per game on ESPN, making it the most-watched season in the WNBA's history. 

This growth points to a potentially historic 2025 for women's basketball, as the intrigue continues to build to the start of the season. The WNBA also hopes to capitalize on Clark and Reese's star power by kicking off Indiana's season against the Chicago Sky on May 17th. 

It helps that Reese and Clark also have a competitive history. During the 2023 NCAA Women's Basketball championship, their on-court rivalry spilled off the court into a media frenzy that pitted the players against each other. Reese's LSU Tigers came out on top by beating Clark's Iowa Hawkeyes 102-85.

The 2024 WNBA finals were also the most watched in history, peaking with 3.3 million viewers during the New York Liberty's 67-62 overtime win vs. the Minnesota Lynx. For 2025, the WNBA will want to beat those numbers, especially if the Fever can make a deep playoff run instead of a first-round exit like last season. 

For their part, the Fever took this offseason to retool for a stronger 2025. While Clark won Rookie of the Year, the Fever went 20-20 before exiting the postseason. Indiana fired head coach Christie Sides in favor of the 2023 Coach of the Year winner, Stephanie White. 

Clark and the WNBA are poised for a big season, but 2024's impressive ratings records could be outpaced come tip-off of the new season on May 16. Clark may see her games' TV ratings compete much more with the ratings players like LeBron James regularly draw if that's the case.