While the game is getting talked about this week mostly due to the Enes Kanter Freedom ejection controversy, Sunday’s game between Caitlin Clark’s Indiana Fever and the rival Chicago Sky will likely be remembered for making WNBA ratings history.
On Wednesday, NBC announced that its Sunday Night Basketball broadcast of the game is now the most-watched WNBA regular season game since the famed opening weekend of the league’s inaugural season in 1997. The network announced that it averaged 3.31 million viewers and peaked at 3.82 million viewers, making it the third-most watched WNBA regular season game ever. It now trails only the June 1997 Liberty-Spark game (5.04 million aveage) and the June 1997 Sting-Mercury game (3.59 million).
“NBC Sports’ primetime presentation of the Indiana Fever-Chicago Sky Sunday Night Basketball game on Aug. 23 averaged a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) of 3.31 million viewers on NBC and Peacock, making it the most-watched WNBA regular-season game since the opening weekend of league’s inaugural 1997 season and the third most-watched WNBA regular-season game ever, based on official Nielsen Big Data + Panel and digital data from Adobe Analytics. The game peaked at 3.82 million viewers,” NBC Sports announced in a statement.
“Fever-Sky (7:08 – 9:26 p.m. ET) trails only two games from the WNBA’s opening weekend of June 21-22, 1997 – New York Liberty-Los Angeles Sparks, 5.04 million viewers on NBC, and Charlotte Sting-Phoenix Mercury, 3.59 million viewers on NBC, respectively. Between Charlotte-Phoenix on June 22, 1997, and Indiana-Chicago this past Sunday, 6,440 WNBA regular-season games were played.”
An incredible milestone
WNBA fans – new and old – were delighted by the news. Some believe it continues to demonstrate how Caitlin Clark is the face of the league:
“I cannot imagine boxing yourself into such a hateful corner that you cannot now celebrate incredible milestones for the league. Face continues to elevate the game. The face of any league is transcendent and ambassadorial: that’s Caitlin Clark,” one user on X wrote.
“This beat an MLB Opening Night primetime game on NBC as well as 3 of NBC’s highest rated NBA games last season. Caitlin Clark may not be a top 3 WNBA player but she’s definitely the biggest draw of the league by far,” another remarked.
“And they say Caitlyn Clark and Kelsey aren’t the faces of the WNBA LOL,” a third wrote.
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The Fever have fully found their stride this year with Clark and Mitchell forming one of the best duos in the league. Mitchell ranks among the best bucket-getters in the WNBA, while Clark is a premier assist-giver.
Both rank in the top-three for points per game.
Could this be the year that the Fever win it all?
