Even a month-long Olympic break couldn't slow the WNBA's runaway momentum in 2024, driven by Caitlin Clark , Angel Reese and a transcendent rookie class.
Clark and the Fever's Saturday night matchup against Seattle averaged 2.2 million viewers, setting the WNBA record for a TV audience on ABC . The primetime contest saw Clark steal the show with 23 points and nine assists, with viewership peaking at nearly 3 million, a 256 percent increase over an average 2023 contest on the network.
Shattering viewership records has become almost a weekly occurrence for Clark after her legendary college career at Iowa . The fact numbers continue to grow has rebuffed once and for all the theory that her NCAA popularity would not translate to the professional ranks.
The sharp-shooter averaged 28 points in her junior season at Iowa, leading her Hawkeyes to their first-ever national championship game against Angel Reese and LSU , a 102-85 defeat that attracted a record-setting 9.9 million viewers.
Clark and Reese met once again in the 2024 Elite Eight, besting their own lofty record with a peak of 16.1 million viewers, and April's national title game between Iowa and LSU became the fifth-most watched non-football sporting event of the last half-decade on ESPN.
However, as the star-studded duo announced their departure to the WNBA, many questioned whether this popularity would transition. "This felt like the moment to watch this sport that will never come again," FOX Sports' Jason Martin said in April.
"It felt like a moment in time. It felt like this is one you want to have been a part of in some way, shape, or form because it's not going to happen again.
"There’s been players with outstanding college careers but nothing like this. The way this was covered, the way we watched it all year, the various records, the amount of articles that were written, the storyline dating back to the LSU game last year with Angel Reese, this was just different.
"Unfortunately for women's basketball, this to me was the peak of the sport and I don't see it getting back here. Because you can't duplicate this, you couldn't you couldn't if you tried. You hope if you're the WNBA that you can catch just some of the drift off of this and carry that a little ways. I have my doubts."
2024's beloved rookie class proved this sentiment wrong before even stepping foot on professional hardwood, with 2.4 million viewers tuning in to watch Clark selected as the No. 1 overall pick by the Fever.
The WNBA's opening month would then attract the highest average attendance this millennium and the largest television audiences ever, nearly tripling 2023's ratings with an average of 1.32 million viewers across nationally televised networks ABC, ESPN , ESPN2, CBS, ION and NBA TV.
And even after the initial buzz, the numbers of WNBA viewers continue to not only hold up but grow after the recent Olympic break. It's an obvious indicator that any of those fears the interest would not translate to the professional league were wide of the mark.
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