Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: the WNBA drew a record-high this weekend for a game involving Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever.
The Fever’s win over the Chicago Sky on Sunday averaged 2.252 million viewers on CBS, the most-watched WNBA game on any network since 2001. It even surpassed Clark’s debut in May, which averaged 2.12 million viewers on ESPN2.
The clash between Clark and collegiate rival Angel Reese broke the previous CBS record for a WNBA game, set in May for a Minnesota Lynx-New York Liberty game. That matchup averaged just 704,000 viewers.
Sky-Fever is quickly becoming a marquee WNBA rivalry, despite the two teams languishing near the bottom of the league standings. Earlier in June, a Sky-Fever matchup on ESPN averaged 1.53 million viewers, the fourth-largest audience for a WNBA game in 22 years.
The WNBA’s viewership gains this season have been impressive and spread across all networks. Last week, the league drew its first-ever audience of one million-plus viewers on Ion for a Fever-Washington Mystics game. ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and NBA TV have also set viewership records for the league.
This week, the Fever host the Mystics on NBA TV at 7 p.m. ET Wednesday before traveling to Atlanta on Ion at 7:30 p.m. ET Friday. On Sunday, ESPN will air the third Fever-Sky game of the season at 4 p.m. ET in another Caitlin Clark-Angel Reese showdown. In other nationally televised games, the Liberty host the LA Sparks both Thursday night on Prime Video and Saturday afternoon on ESPN.
About Joe Lucia
I hate your favorite team. I also sort of hate most of my favorite teams.