The Caitlin Clark Effect: Indiana Fever Get 36 Games on National TV Next Season – 30 More Than the NBA’s Pacers

Ahmad Austin Jr.Apr 10th, 2024, 4:55 pm
 
Caitlin Clark

Morry Gash/AP

Excitement for Caitlin Clark’s arrival in the WNBA is so high that the Indiana Fever have been given 36 nationally-televised games this upcoming season.

The Fever have the no. 1 pick in the April 15 WNBA Draft and it’s widely assumed the team will use that pick on the Iowa star. The overwhelming majority of the team’s 40 regular season games will be broadcast for a national audience as the league looks to take full advantage of Clark’s massive drawing power. That includes six games on ESPN and ESPN, two on CBS, two on ABC, and four on Amazon Prime Video.

To put into perspective how much the WNBA is investing in Clark’s arrival, the NBA’s Indiana Pacers – who have rising star Tyrese Haliburton – were scheduled for just six national games going into the 2023-24 season. It should be noted that the NBA plays more than twice as many regular season games, yet the Fever have six times as many national games as the team it shares an arena with.

The final three rounds of the NCAA Tournament proved just how much of a ratings machine Clark is. From the Elite Eight to the national championship, Iowa’s games broke and re-broke its own viewership records. The women’s national championship between Iowa and South Carolina even managed to attract a larger audience than the men’s championship between the University of Connecticut and Purdue.

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