NEW YORK — ESPN’s broadcast of the Connecticut Sun’s game against Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever had the highest viewership for a WNBA game on the network.
The Sun’s 92-71 win over the Fever in Clark’s WNBA debut on the league’s opening night on Tuesday drew an average of 2.1 million viewers on ESPN2, ESPN+ and Disney+, including a high of 2.3 million viewers between 7:45 p.m. and 7:59 p.m. That topped ESPN’s previous mark of nearly 1.5 million viewers for a Phoenix Mercury-Connecticut Sun game on May 22, 2004, in Diana Taurasi’s rookie season.
The second game between Phoenix and the two-time defending champion Las Vegas Aces averaged 464,000 viewers, with the two games averaging 1.28 million — a 192% increase over the league’s average last year for broadcasts on ESPN.
Clark set the NCAA all-time scoring record at Iowa last season and she was a big reason why a record 18.9 million viewers tuned in to the national championship game, which her Hawkeyes lost to unbeaten South Carolina. Clark's arrival to the WNBA has already been a big boost for the league. The WNBA draft had record viewership, and three teams have already moved their games to bigger arenas to keep up with the demand for tickets to watch her play.
Fever on WTHR and WALV
The Fever opened the regular season on Tuesday, May 14 at Connecticut.
As the Local TV Home of the Indiana Fever, WTHR/WALV will broadcast 16 Fever games during the upcoming season.
The broadcast schedule will include the home opener against the New York Liberty on Thursday, May 16.
Ten of the games will be shown for free over the air on WTHR, and six of the games will be on WALV, which carries MeTV programming and is on Channel 13.3 and 46.1.
- Thursday, May 16 — 7 p.m. New York — WTHR
- Wednesday, May 22 — 10 p.m. @ Seattle — WTHR
- Saturday, May 25 — 9 p.m. @ Las Vegas — WTHR
- Thursday, May 30 — 7 p.m. Seattle — WTHR
- Sunday, June 2 — 7 p.m. @ New York — WALV
- Monday, June 10 — 7 p.m. @ Connecticut — WTHR
- Thursday, June 13 — 7 p.m. Atlanta — WTHR
- Sunday, June 23 — 6 p.m. @ Chicago — WALV
- Thursday, June 27 — 10 p.m. @ Seattle — WALV
- Wednesday, July 10 — Noon Washington — WTHR
- Monday, Aug. 26 — 7:30 p.m. @ Atlanta — WTHR
- Wednesday, Sept. 4 — 7 p.m. Los Angeles — WALV
- Sunday, Sept. 8 — 4 p.m. Atlanta — WTHR
- Wednesday, Sept. 11 — 7 p.m. Las Vegas — WALV
- Sunday, Sept. 15 — 3 p.m. Dallas — WALV
- Thursday, Sept. 19 — 7 p.m. @ Washington — WTHR
Also, 36 Fever games will be broadcast nationally this season.