As expected, Caitlin Clark’s arrival in the WNBA is having a dramatic impact on television ratings for the league. Over Memorial Day Weekend, ION, CBS and NBA TV set viewership records for WNBA broadcasts according to Sports Business Journal’s Austin Karp.
ION, which is in its second season carrying WNBA games, had 724,000 viewers and peaked at 981,000 viewers on Friday as Clark’s Indiana Fever took on the LA Sparks and second overall pick Cameron Brink. Not only does that number represent the highest viewership for a WNBA game on ION, but it also beat the previous high by almost double.
On Saturday night, NBA TV averaged 333,000 viewers for the Indiana Fever-Las Vegas Aces game which is their highest viewership ever. For comparison, NBA TV averaged just 46,000 viewers for 47 WNBA games last year.
Earlier in the day on Saturday, CBS carried a game between the NY Liberty and the Minnesota Lynx which drew 704,000 viewers, another record as the highest viewership for a WNBA game on CBS. The previous record was 694,000 for a game last season between the Phoenix Mercury and the NY Liberty.
