WNBA Prepares for Caitlin Clark’s Regular Season Debut

The 2024 WNBA season tips off next Tuesday, and the league is in for what is anticipated to be its most popular season yet. 

Last year, attendance was up 16% year-over-year with viewership at its highest in 21 years – and that was before Caitlin Clark joined the league.  

Clark declared for the WNBA Draft earlier this year after four years at the University of Iowa, where she became a phenomenon and made history as the NCAA’s all-time leading scorer in men’s and women’s basketball.  

Selected by the Indiana Fever as the No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft, Caitlin Clark is already sparking a shift in the WNBA’s popularity.  

The Las Vegas Aces, Los Angeles Sparks and Washington Mystics have moved their games against the Fever to bigger arenas to accommodate fans. The former, who will use the 18,000-seat T-Mobile Arena instead of its 12,000-seat Michelob Ultra Arena, won last year’s championship.  

The moves aren’t unwarranted – the Fever’s preseason game against the Dallas Wings sold out, and there’s a significant difference in ticket prices for tickets sold to games with Caitlin Clark in the matchup compared to games without her.  

• Tickets sold are 1.9x higher when Clark and the Fever are included in the matchup, accounting for 65% of all ticket sales.  

• Total sales revenue is 4.4x higher when the Fever are playing.  

• The average ticket price for games with the Fever is 2.3x higher than other games.  

Clark will play her first professional regular season game on Tuesday when the Fever visits the Connecticut Sun. Indiana won one preseason game against the Atlanta Dream and lost one to the Dallas Wings.  

Fans can watch her regular season debut on 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN2.