Riley Gaines addresses the controversy surrounding WNBA star Caitlin Clark, asserting that concerns for Clark stem from her exceptional talent, not her race or sexuality. Gaines suggests jealousy from other players is fueling the on-court abuse and the league’s ‘self-imploding’ nature. She questions the double standards applied to different athletes.
The WNBA has another Caitlin Clark television number to celebrate. And this one might be even more impressive than some of the bigger ones. Wednesday night’s game against the Los Angeles Sparks, according to USA Sports PR, drew over one million viewers despite a late 10:30 p.m. ET start.
The Fever lost, 106-92, and Clark played just 16 minutes in her return from a back injury that had kept her out for the previous two weeks. But that feels secondary to the bigger story here.
One million viewers is a monster number for the WNBA under almost any circumstance. But these weren’t exactly favorable circumstances. The game aired across USA Network and CNBC. Clark has drawn much bigger numbers on broadcast television, but this was cable-only. Additionally, this was not a weekend showcase game. It didn’t even air in a friendly weeknight window. It started at 10:30 p.m. ET. And it still averaged more than one million viewers.
According to USA Sports PR, citing Nielsen Big Data + Panel data, Fever-Sparks was the network’s most-watched WNBA game on record, up 149% compared to the 2025 cable average. The 10:30 p.m. ET start averaged at least one million viewers. That’s a pretty big deal.
Clark has previously drawn huge audiences on ABC, making it the league’s fourth-largest audience, including playoffs and All-Star Games, since 2000. A CBS game against the New York Liberty drew the third-largest WNBA audience of any kind since 2000. Those were massive numbers, obviously, and they speak to Clark’s immense popularity.
While the Fever-Sparks number says something different, it shouldn’t be considered any less important. In a way, it’s more impressive than those previous highs. This data shows that Clark can drag the WNBA to a seven-figure TV audience even in a brutal East Coast television window, on cable, in the middle of the week.
Before Clark arrived, the WNBA went nearly 16 years without a single game averaging a million viewers. Now, a 10:30 p.m. ET start on a Wednesday night has become a historic first for the league. The game itself wasn’t even great for Clark or the Fever. The star guard returned from a back injury aggravated during the June 24 game against the Phoenix Mercury and scored just nine points in 16 minutes. Indiana trailed the entire second half and never got closer than a nine-point deficit in the fourth quarter.
The WNBA and its media supporters continue trying to sell the league’s boom as a broader women’s basketball story. There’s some truth to that. The league is clearly in a better position now than it was a few years ago. The product has more visibility than ever. But the biggest television numbers continue to point to Clark.
Sports Media Watch noted that the five most-watched WNBA games this season have all featured Indiana. There is an interesting wrinkle there, too. The Fever have started to draw strong numbers even when Clark is not playing. A July 5 game on ESPN’s “Women’s Sports Sundays” drew 1.1 million viewers, making it the biggest cable or streaming WNBA audience of the season at the time. But that isn’t the anti-Clark argument some people seem to think it is. It’s actually the opposite. Clark has turned the Fever into the WNBA’s most important television brand. The team now carries national interest in a way it never did before she arrived.
If anything, it’s more of a pro-Clark argument. She generated so much interest in the Fever that people are willing to watch even when she’s not playing. Fever games without Clark are drawing bigger numbers than non-Fever games, too. So this isn’t simply a case of the entire WNBA drawing bigger audiences. The July 5 game drew more viewers than the previous two “Women’s Sports Sundays” on ESPN drew combined. Neither of those games, Liberty-Valkyries (743,000 viewers) and Liberty-Sparks (778,000), included the Fever.
The WNBA is growing. Even drawing over 700,000 viewers for non-Fever games is a massive increase over the pre-Clark era. But every time the league gets another historic TV rating, there’s a common denominator. Her name is Caitlin Clark.
