Following Caitlin Clark’s exit from the playoffs, television ratings for the WNBA have sharply declined.
Clark’s rookie season concluded last week when the Indiana Fever lost to the Connecticut Sun, marking their second consecutive defeat and an early playoff exit.
In a record-setting moment, 2.54 million viewers tuned in to watch Clark’s final game, surpassing the 1.84 million who watched the first game of the series on September 22.
However, with the Fever out of contention, the viewership for the WNBA’s first playoff weekend without Clark dropped significantly.
The opening semifinal match between the New York Liberty and the Las Vegas Aces, despite being two of the league’s premier teams, attracted only 929,000 viewers, a 50% decrease from Clark’s playoff opener.
Interestingly, this viewership number still exceeded those from last season’s finals between the Liberty and the Aces.
The semifinal game featuring the Minnesota Lynx and the Connecticut Sun garnered about 650,000 viewers.
Both semifinal games fell short of the viewership seen during several of Clark’s regular-season appearances, including a match against the Lynx that drew 1.26 million viewers.
Clark, a standout college athlete, has significantly increased interest in women’s basketball since joining the WNBA.
Her remarkable rookie season earned her the title of WNBA Rookie of the Year, and she led the league in assists, averaging 8.4 per game.
In her last playoff game, Clark scored 25 points and added nine assists and six rebounds, setting a record as the first rookie to achieve a 25-5-5 game in postseason play.
Her impactful performance has made the Fever the most-watched team in the league, with the largest audiences all linked to their games.