The Caitlin Clark Effect is helping to remake everything we know about women’s college basketball ratings.
The question is, will she have the same impact on the WNBA when she arrives next season? Is it a foregone conclusion that the league will see a huge bump in ratings thanks to Clark’s presumptive spot on the Indiana Fever’s roster?
Not everyone is convinced the Caitlin Clark bump will be as big.
During the conversation on this week’s episode of The Sports Media Podcast, host Austin Karp and guest Barry Jackson debated how big Clark’s impact will be on WNBA ratings, arriving at different conclusions.
“I think she’s going to be able to bring bigger numbers to the WNBA this season, her rookie season, even playing in Indiana,” said Karp. “Their record for a regular-season game is something like only one and a half million viewers. I think that she can provide that lift if they put her in the right windows and I think it’s going to be a win for the league.”
Jackson, a writer with the Miami Herald, disagreed with the notion that Clark would boost the league’s overall numbers by as much as people think.
“…Even though I have admiration for Caitlin Clark and I know she has been a ratings magnet to the point that that Iowa game ranked second among all college basketball games in ratings this season behind only a Michigan State-Arizona game on Thanksgiving that, by the way, had a direct lead-in from the NFL,” said Jackson. “So I agree with you to the extent that she’s going to generate interest. I don’t think she’s going to provide a significant boost to WNBA ratings, mostly because of the window times, the timeslots, that the league puts its playoff games in.
“Keep in mind, during the WNBA Finals last year, two games were on Sunday afternoons opposite NFL games. So the question would be this… Is there an NFL fan who’s intrigued enough by Caitlin Clark that they’re going to stop watching the NFL on a Sunday afternoon and watch her? No matter how captivating she is, no matter how talented she is, I simply do not see that happening.
“We might have a marginal impact on ratings. I don’t think it’s going to be significant. The WNBA last year averaged 627,000 viewers on ABC, its highest in 11 years. That number might jump a bit for games that she’s involved in, but I don’t think it’s going to jump appreciatively.”
Jackson likely has a point that Clark probably isn’t going to cause individual WNBA game ratings to suddenly blossom to the next level, especially when she’s not involved. However, the specifics of his examples also leave a lot of room for growth across the board, even if it’s not the world-beating numbers we’re seeing right now. It stands to reason that initial interest in her will follow the Fever through the season and potentially rub off in different directions, even if it’s not to a staggering degree.
Meanwhile, while the NFL always consumes everything in its path, we’ve seen a lot of women’s sports shoulder programming do especially well on NFL Sundays. If WNBA broadcasters play their cards right, they might end up benefitting from that timing a bit better this year, especially if Clark and the Fever make a playoff run.
