The Caitlin Clark viewership train is showing no signs of slowing down. Both Indiana Fever games this past weekend drew enormous audiences as the star continued her comeback from injury.
Friday’s Fever-Atlanta Dream game on Ion averaged nearly 1.5 million viewers, per Scripps Sports PR, marking the most-watched WNBA game on Ion this season. It’s the second-most-watched WNBA game in Ion’s history, falling just short of a Fever-Chicago Sky game last August (featuring Caitlin Clark and rival Angel Reese), which averaged 1.6 million viewers.
Through eight weeks, the WNBA on Ion is averaging 595,000 viewers, a 12% increase compared to this point last season. The network has had the unfortunate luck of airing Fever games in which Clark has not played, though those contests have still fared well.
On Sunday, the Fever’s game against Paige Bueckers and the Dallas Wings averaged 2.1 million viewers on ABC, good for the network’s fourth-largest WNBA audience ever. Viewership for the Fever’s win peaked at 2.5 million. According to Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch, the game more than doubled the same window’s viewership last year, a Phoenix Mercury-Connecticut Sun game that averaged 1.02 million viewers. The game represented a 69% increase over ABC’s WNBA average from last season.
This past Sunday, ABC aired another of its most-watched #WNBA games EVER with the @IndianaFever‘s win over the @DallasWings 👏
🏀 2.1M avg. viewers (2.5M peak)
🏀 WNBA on ESPN up 7% from last season pic.twitter.com/GvkGHzStTt— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) July 15, 2025
Overall, WNBA viewership on ESPN networks is up 7% season-to-date.
Despite Caitlin Clark missing several games so far this season due to injury, viewers continue to tune into the Fever at impressive rates. One might expect the injuries to be a momentum killer, but that hasn’t been the case.
The Fever have yet another national game on Tuesday night against the Sun, followed by one more game on Wednesday against the New York Liberty, before the WNBA All-Star Weekend begins on Friday. For the first time, Clark will participate in the three-point contest, likely drawing another big audience for ESPN.
About Drew Lerner
Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.