The arrival of Caitlin Clark, Cameron Brink, Kamilla Cardoso and other rookies in the WNBA, combined with the existing star power in the league, has generated a deluge of interest from sports fans ahead of the 2024 season. No WNBA game has averaged more than 1 million viewers in 16 years, a trend that figures to change based on the trajectory of the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament and the subsequent WNBA Draft averaging 2.45 million viewers on ESPN. With the Fever playing a preseason game ahead of the start of the regular season next Tuesday, 610 Sports Radio host and University of Iowa alumnus Josh Klingler found himself watching the contest.
Klingler, co-host of Fescoe in the Morning, acknowledged that there were questions surrounding if the success realized by women’s college basketball could translate to the WNBA. Throughout the most recent iteration of March Madness broadcast by The Walt Disney Company (ESPN/ABC), the Final Four averaged 13.8 million viewers, rendering the two most-watched semifinal games on record.
The National Championship Game between Iowa and South Carolina averaged 18.7 million viewers, which represents the most-watched basketball game since 2019 and most-watched sporting event, excluding football and the Olympics, since 2019. Viewership for the game, which is the second most-watched non-Olympic women’s sporting event on record, was up 89% year-over-year and 285% from the 2022 iteration of the contest.
Despite the success of Clark, who broke the NCAA Basketball all-time scoring record in her senior year, Klingler did not think he would be in for WNBA games this season. When his wife began asking about the Fever and when they would be playing, in addition to following the WNBA Draft with her daughter, he was initially unable to answer her question.
“She’s like, ‘Well, when do they play?,’ and I’m like, ‘I think it’s coming up but I don’t know,’” Klingler recalled, “and so I look yesterday and they were going to be playing in a preseason game, the Fever, and so we downloaded the WNBA app and watched the game last night.”
Co-host Bob Fescoe asked Klingler if the platform was better than the Bally Sports app, which has been a topic of discussion on their show because of the glitches it has experienced and its utilization amid uncertainty with Diamond Sports Group and cable providers. The show recently discussed how Diamond Sports Group and Comcast were unable to reach a new carriage deal, thus removing the regional sports network from the service. Klingler replied that everything worked well and that he utilized Fire TV. From there, Fescoe criticized Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve for complaining about the promotion of Clark and the Fever, posting on social media about her team’s game using a hashtag that read “#theWismorethanoneplayer.”
“If [Clark] brings more people to the party, it is your job then to promote the other ones that are already at the party, and that’s what this broadcast did. It was great,” Klingler explained, referring to the Fever local broadcast. “They were discussing a whole bunch of people, and they kept saying, ‘Well, we probably have a bunch of Iowa Hawkeye viewers tonight,’ and they were kind of going in depth about the team lineup, and I’m like, ‘This is pretty cool.’”
Klingler felt as if the broadcast was inviting people to watch the game and working to retain them as the season commenced. The Fever will open their season on ESPN2, ESPN+ and Disney+ when they face the Connecticut Sun on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. EST. On the call for the contest is play-by-play announcer Ryan Ruocco, analyst Rebecca Lobo and reporter Holly Rowe.
Ahead of the season, Tegna has broadened the local distribution of Fever games in Indianapolis and 11 additional markets. Fescoe did not understand the problem with the popularity of Clark and how she is helping to grow the game, later comparing her to Tiger Woods and how he created an overall windfall for the game of golf.
“Quite honestly, nobody’s really cared about your league, and now that Caitlin Clark’s in there, you got people that are caring about your league and you’re playing the jealousy card,” Fescoe said. “It’s embarrassing – it really is. If you’re associated with the WNBA and that coach for the Minnesota Lynx complaining about it, go kick rocks. Go kick rocks because she’s benefitting you.”
Whereas Klingler did not prognosticate that he would be watching WNBA games before, he figures to be invested in the Fever this year. In the end, his entire family ended up watching the preseason contest as the Fever secured an 83-80 victory.
“It was amazing,” Klingler said. “I was like, ‘Wow, I didn’t think I’d be here,’ so now I got the alerts. I get the alerts when they’re playing, [and] I think I’m in, at least for a year.”
