Caitlin Clark and WNBA Viewership numbers

Fever yet to break as WNBA delivers another pair of milestone audiences​

by Jon Lewis
Aug 14, 2026

The Fever shows no sign of easing as the WNBA continues to deliver some of its largest audiences in the past quarter-century.

Tuesday Aug 11, 2026’s Fever-Liberty WNBA regular season game averaged 2.01 million viewers on ESPN, marking the fourth-largest WNBA audience ever on cable, trailing only three games in 2024 — Caitlin Clark’s career debut against Connecticut (2.11M), her second career meeting with Angel Reese (2.30M), and the winner-take-all Game 5 of the WNBA Finals (2.15M). Each of those games aired on ESPN or ESPN2.

Indiana’s win, which peaked with 2.35 million viewers in the 9 PM ET quarter-hour, delivered the 8th-largest audience of the WNBA season. With the exception of the All-Star Game, each have involved the Fever.

That list also includes last Saturday Aug 8, 2026’s matchup of the Fever and Sky, which averaged a 1.5 rating and 2.56 million viewers on ABC — tied as the fourth-largest audience of the season, matching Fever-Liberty on CBS in June. The only games to place higher were another matchup of the Liberty and Fever on CBS (2.58M), Fever-Aces on NBC’s “Sunday Night Basketball” (2.64M) and the All-Star Game on ABC (3.15M).

Going back further, Indiana’s win tied the 6th-largest WNBA audience of any kind since 2000 — behind the aforementioned games, Sky-Fever on the opening weekend of last season (2.70M) and the 2024 All-Star Game (3.44M).

Each of the 11 most-watched games since 2000 have involved Caitlin Clark in some way, including eight Fever games, her two All-Star appearances, and the 2024 WNBA Draft in which she was picked first overall.

Also on Sat Aug 8, 2026, CBS averaged a 0.8 and 1.31 million for Aces-Lynx, the first game of a nationally televised back-to-back for Las Vegas. The Aces rested their starters for the second game, on Sun Aug 9, 2026, a 40-point loss to New York that averaged a 0.8 and 1.29 million on ABC.

The Lynx also played back-to-back nationally televised games on Aug 8 and Aug 9. The Aug 9, 2026 game against Dallas averaging 1.6 million on NBC across a Nielsen-estimated linear audience (0.8 rating, 1.465M viewers) and Adobe Analytics.

On Sun Aug 9, 2026, ESPN averaged a 0.45 and 805,000 for Valkyries-Sparks on “Women’s Sports Sundays.”

To put the numbers in perspective, the same weekend last year featured only two nationally televised games, both on ABC. Fever-Storm — without an injured Caitlin Clark — averaged 1.60 million, and a 53-point rout of the Aces by the Lynx averaged 822,000.

(Figures for the August 6 Aces-Fever game on Prime Video were delayed and would not be expected for several days. Given the teams involved and the result — Las Vegas tied the game at the end of regulation and then won at the buzzer in overtime thanks to a pair of threes by Chelsea Gray — the game seemed likely to rank among the most-watched on the streamer this season.)

WNBA Fever Dream continues with new viewership records on ESPN, ION​

by Jon Lewis
Aug 18, 2026


Another weekend, another set of viewership milestones for the WNBA.

Sunday Aug 16, 2026’s Fever-Dream WNBA regular season game averaged 2.58 million viewers on ESPN, marking the largest WNBA audience of any kind ever on cable. The previous high was 2.54 million for Fever-Sun Game 2 in the first round of the 2024 playoffs, Caitlin Clark’s most-recent playoff game.

Indiana’s win, which peaked with four million viewers in the 7:15 PM ET quarter-hour, was the 8th game this season to average at least 2.4 million viewers — doubling the previous 25 seasons combined. (Note that this is the first WNBA season since Nielsen shifted to its new “Big Data + Panel” methodology and the second since it expanded its out-of-home viewing sample to cover 100 percent of markets in the lower 48 states. It is likely that some games from the prior two seasons would have hit that mark under the same conditions.)

Overall, the 12-largest WNBA viewing audiences since 2000 have occurred in the past 3 seasons, each involving Fever G Caitlin Clark — nine Fever games, her two appearances in the All-Star Game and the 2024 WNBA Draft in which she was selected first overall.

The strong lead-in provided a boost to the second game of ESPN’s doubleheader, a matchup of sub-.500 teams between the Mercury and Fire in which former Phoenix G Diana Taurasi had her jersey retired. That game averaged 1.35 million, marking the largest WNBA regular season audience ever on ESPN that did not involve the Clark-era Fever.

The ESPN family of networks (including ABC) were averaging 1.4 million viewers for WNBA games entering Tuesday Aug 18, 2026’s doubleheader, up 16% from last year. With the WNBA soon to pause for a three-week break for the FIBA World Championships and the pro and college football seasons about to start, ESPN has only one more regular season night — and it is more than a month away on September 22.

ESPN was not the only network to set a record for a Fever game last week. Indiana’s Fri Aug 14, 2026 game against Dallas averaged 1.62 million viewers on ION, marking the largest WNBA audience ever on the network, which began airing games in 2023. Notably, the game was the most-watched sporting event of a day that included an NFL preseason game on NFL Network.

In addition to ranking as the most-watched WNBA game on ION, it was also the network’s top program of any kind in nearly four years — since August 30, 2022.

o_AMAYS said:

Huge tv viewership breakthrough for Clark and the Fever on Sunday night: 3,310,000. 3rd all-time.

NBC Sports Viewership Of Chicago Sky, Indiana Fever Highest Since Opening WNBA Weekend In 1997

"Viewership peaked at 3.82 million during the broadcast."

barrettmedia.com

Click to expand...

After that opening weekend in 1997 (the WNBA's inaugural season), people tuned out.

Then came Caitlin Clark.

Recent WNBA Viewership Numbers
By Jon Lewis
Aug 22, 2026

Tuesday Aug 18, 2026’s Fever-Tempo WNBA regular season game averaged 1.85 million viewers on ESPN, marking the network’s third-largest audience of the season, behind last Sunday August 16’s Fever-Dream game (2.58M) and Fever-Liberty the previous Tuesday, Aug 11 (2.01M).

The Tues Aug 18 Dream-Aces lead-out averaged 1.21 million.

On Saturday, Aug 15, 2026, CBS averaged a 0.9 and 1.62 million for a potential Finals preview between the Lynx and Aces — marking the largest audience of the season for a game that did not involve Fever G Caitlin Clark.

Fever set Prime Video Viewership High Mark for this Season
By Jon Lewis
Aug 24, 2026


Thursday Aug 20's Fever-Wings WNBA regular season game averaged 1.07 million viewers on Prime Video, marking the streamer’s largest WNBA audience. (Prime carried WNBA games prior to this season, but those were not Nielsen-rated.)

The previous high for Prime came two weeks earlier, when the Aces’ buzzer-beating win over the Fever on Thurs Aug 6 averaged 948,000.

Prime had another Fever game on Saturday Aug 22 against the Liberty, figures for which will not be available until Tuesday, Aug 25, at the earliest.

Sky is the limit as Fever attract their largest audience of Caitlin Clark era​

by Jon Lewis
Aug 26, 2026


Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark, center left, drives to the basket past Chicago Sky forward/center Azura Stevens, center right, during the first half of a WNBA basketball game Sunday, Aug. 23, 2026, in Chicago. (AP Photo/Nam Y. Huh)



The Indiana Fever played in front of their largest audience yet on Sunday night.

Sunday Aug 23’s Fever-Sky WNBA regular season game averaged 3.31 million viewers on NBC across a Nielsen-measured linear audience (1.8 rating, 3.09M viewers) and streaming viewership tracked by Adobe Analytics, marking the largest WNBA regular season audience since the league’s opening weekend of play in June 1997 — also on NBC (Liberty-Sparks: 5.04M; Sting-Mercury: 3.59M).

Indiana’s blowout win, which peaked with 3.82 million viewers, ranks fourth among all WNBA telecasts behind the aforementioned 1997 games and the 2024 All-Star Game on ABC (3.44M).

Fever G Caitlin Clark has now played in three of the six most-watched WNBA games on record, with Fever-Sky joining her two All-Star game appearances in 2024 and 2026.

(For all historical comparisons, note that Nielsen did not begin tracking out-of-home viewing in its estimates until 2020, did not do so in 100% of markets in the lower 48 states until 2025, and is about a year into a new methodology that integrates “Big Data” from smart TVs and set-top boxes with its traditional panel.)

Fever-Sky was the second WNBA edition of NBC’s “Sunday Night Basketball,” both occurring in off weeks for the network’s MLB “Sunday Night Baseball” package. This past weekend, NBC was unable to carry “Sunday Night Baseball” in its usual primetime window because of the MLB Little League Classic, which traditionally airs on Sunday nights and contractually belongs to ESPN. The WNBA game comfortably topped the Braves-Brewers contest, which drew 2.0 million. (NBC’s position is that because Nielsen does not track its streaming viewership, its combined Nielsen + Adobe audience figures are comparable to the Nielsen-only figures of other networks.)

Among the regular season games on NBC’s new Sunday night baseball and basketball packages, Fever-Sky ranks eighth behind four NBA and three Major League Baseball games. Each of the games to fare better featured the Lakers, Knicks, Yankees or Dodgers. (The NBA playoff editions of “Sunday Night Basketball,” as one would expect, would bump most of those regular season games out of the top ten.)

Largest regular season “Sunday Night” audiences on NBC since end of NFL season​

Top regular season “Sunday Night” audiences on NBC since end of NFL season.

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The game was the seventh and final of the regular season on NBC. The network averaged 1.75 million viewers for its WNBA regular season windows, which it said is up 35% from comparable coverage last year. NBC will finish its WNBA season with Game 1 and Game 4 of the WNBA Finals.

Sunday’s game was the second of a back-to-back for the Fever, who played Saturday evening against the Liberty on Prime Video. Figures for that game will be provided when available.

With one more game left before they take a three-week break for the FIBA World Championship, and with five games total remaining in the regular season, the Fever have this season alone delivered 8 of the 12 largest WNBA audiences since 2000. Clark has played in 9, including the All-Star Game.

There will be no more Fever games on the major broadcast networks ABC, NBC or CBS until the playoffs, but the team does have two more games on ION, one on ESPN and one on USA Network.