Caitlin Clark helps WNBA hit historic late-night cable number despite limited return to LA
Riley Gaines: Caitlin Clark's abuse was motivated by jealousy, not race or gender
Riley Gaines addresses the controversy surrounding WNBA star Caitlin Clark, asserting that the concern about Clark stems from her special talent, not her race or gender. Gaines suggests that jealousy from other players fuels abuse on the field and the league's “arrogant” nature. He questions the double standards applied to different athletes.
The WNBA has another Caitlin Clark television number to celebrate.
And this one may be even more impressive than the other hundreds.
Clark and the Indiana Fever helped bring in an average audience of 1.04 million viewers for Wednesday night's game against the Los Angeles Sparks, according to USA Sports PR.
WNBA viewership reached a record high as Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever drew 1.04 million viewers against the Los Angeles Sparks in a 10 pm ET game on Wednesday. (Tyler Ross/NBAE via Getty Images)
The Fever lost, 106-92, and Clark played just 16 minutes in his return from a back injury that kept him out two weeks ago. But that sounds like part of the bigger story here.
WNBA NEEDS A BIGGER STORY THAN CAITLIN CLARK, BUT TV RATINGS CONTINUE TO SHOW HER.
A million viewers is a huge number for the WNBA under any circumstances.
But these were not really favorable conditions.
The show aired on USA Network and CNBC. Clark drew the biggest numbers in broadcast television, but this was only on cable.
Additionally, this was not a weekend exhibition game. It didn't even fit into the friendly window during the week. The game, played in Los Angeles, begins Wednesday night at 10 pm ET.
And it still averages over a million viewers.
According to USA Sports PR, citing Nielsen Big Data + Panel data, Fever-Sparks was the most-watched WNBA network game on record, up 149% compared to the 2025 cable average. The network also said it marks the first time in WNBA history that a game starting at 10 pm ET averaged at least one million viewers.
That is a very big thing.
CAITLIN CLARK BREAKS WNBA RECORD AS FEVER HUT DEFENDING CHAMP ACE IN LAS VEGAS
Indiana's opening weekend game against the Dallas Wings drew 2.49 million viewers on ABC, making it the league's fourth-largest audience, including the playoffs and All-Star Games, since 2000. Clark and Fever later averaged 2.56 million viewers in a CBS game against the New York Liberty, the most audience of the WNBA0000000.
Those were big numbers, obviously, and speak to Clark's enormous popularity.
Caitlin Clark is the most popular player in the WNBA with wide jeans. (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
Although the number of Fever-Sparks means something different, it should not be taken for granted. In some ways, it is more impressive than the previous highs.
This data shows that Clark can pull the WNBA a seven-figure TV audience even in the brutal East Coast television window, on cable, during the week.
Before Clark arrived, the WNBA went nearly 16 years without a single game averaging a million viewers. The previous show with seven actors came in 2008, when Candace Parker's paid debut averaged 1.07 million viewers on ABC.
That was the old ceiling, and it took the highly anticipated rookie airing at 3:30 pm ET on Saturday afternoons on a major broadcast network.
Now, when Clark is involved, a million viewers on cable at 10 pm ET are apparently playing.
The match itself was not good at all for Clark or Fever. The star returned from a serious back injury during a June 24 game against the Phoenix Mercury and scored just nine points in 16 minutes. Indiana trailed throughout the second half and never got closer than a nine-point deficit in the fourth quarter.
The WNBA and its media supporters continue to try to sell the league's prosperity as a broader story of women's basketball. There is truth in that. The league is clearly in better shape now than in previous years. The product is more visible than before.
But the big television numbers continue to point to Clark.
Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever drew 1.04 million cable viewers at 10 pm ET on Wednesday, a WNBA history first. (Andy Lyons / Getty Images)
Sports Media Watch noted that the five most-watched WNBA games this season all featured Indiana.
There's an interesting wrinkle there, too. The Fever have started putting up solid numbers even without Clark playing.
Indiana's July 5 game against the Las Vegas Aces, without Clark, averaged 1.55 million viewers on ESPN's “Women's Sports Sundays,” making it the largest cable or broadcast WNBA audience of the season.
But that's not the argument against Clark that some people seem to think it is.
It's actually the opposite.
Clark has turned the Fever into the WNBA's most important television brand. The group is now in charge of the country's interests in a way it never was before it arrived. If anything, it's more of a Clark conflict. He has created so much interest in Fever that people are willing to watch him even when he is not playing.
Fever games without Clark draw bigger numbers than non-Fever games, too. So this isn't just a case of the entire WNBA drawing a large audience.
The 1.55 million viewers on July 5 were more viewers than the previous two Sundays for “Women's Sports” on ESPN combined. Not in those games, Liberty-Valkyries (743,000 viewers) and Liberty-Sparks (778,000), includes the Fever.
The WNBA is growing. Even drawing more than 700,000 spectators for non-Fever games is a huge increase from the pre-Clark era.
WNBA EXTENDS REGULAR SEASON TO 50 GAMES STARTING IN 2027, LONGEST SCHEDULE IN LEAGUE HISTORY
But every time the league gets another TV rating, the same thing happens.
Her name is Caitlin Clark.
