WNBA
How Caitlin Clark will impact WNBA TV broadcast revenues
The star for the Iowa Hawkeyes is not yet a professional basketball player, but she has already disrupted WNBA television broadcasts.
Caitlin Clark has demonstrated throughout her college career at Iowa that she is an exceptional talent in basketball, and now she is set to make the leap to the professional game through the WNBA Draft. The collegiate recruitment process is scheduled for 15 April at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, and it is a certainty that the Des Moines native will be drafted with the first overall pick, which belongs to the Indiana Fever.
Caitlin Clark breaking records
Under Clark’s leadership, the Hawkeyes’ games broke audience records by leaps and bounds during each round of the last March Madness. Despite Iowa’s loss in the NCAA Basketball Tournament championship game against South Carolina, the match drew 18.9 million viewers, with the highest peak at 24.1 million tuning in to ESPN to watch the 22-year-old guard’s final college game.
The WNBA is well aware of Clark’s impact on broadcasts, and as a result, they have announced that 36 out of the Indiana Fever’s 40 regular-season games will be televised nationally. This means that 10 games featuring the NCAA points record holder will air on ABC, ESPN, ESPN, and CBS. In contrast, last year, the team owned by Herb Simon only had one nationally televised game.
What is the most viewed WNBA game?
The WNBA game with the highest viewership in the league’s history was Game 4 of the 2023 Finals when 889,000 viewers tuned in to the showdown between the Las Vegas Aces and the New York Liberty. In that match, the audience peaked at 1.3 million, less than a tenth of those who watched Clark’s final college game.
What are Caitlin Clark’s collegiate statistics?
The 22-year-old standout from Iowa has been a prominent figure since her freshman year with the Hawkeyes, but her final year proved to be the best personally as she increased her scoring average (31.6) and assists (8.9). Throughout her collegiate career, Clark started in all 139 games she played for Iowa, accumulating 3,951 points, 1,144 assists, 990 rebounds, 210 steals, and 74 blocked shots.