On Nov. 25, 2020, Caitlin Clark suited up for the Iowa Hawkeyes for the first time in her career. A spectacular 27-8-4-3 game was the first taste that the basketball world got of a transcendent woman who would go on to become a phenom in short order.
Now Clark is set to begin her second season in the WNBA, a year after a rookie season that, by all numbers and metrics, was historically record-breaking. Her meteoric rise to a national icon has led to what many have termed the Caitlin Clark Effect.
What Is the Caitlin Clark Effect?
In her junior year, Clark went from an outstanding player to a national appointment viewing. En route to a trip to the 2023 National Championship Game, her performance made her a genuine household name.
It also gave birth to a sizzling rivalry against the LSU Tigers, particularly Angel Reese, with many harkening back to the Magic Johnson-Larry Bird feud in the late 1970s that gave birth to the popularity of the NBA.
The two had a similar effect on women’s college basketball, with the Championship Game setting the viewership record for women’s college basketball at 9.9 million viewers. It led to a dramatic increase in ticket sales for Iowa, and the Caitlin Clark Effect started showing up.
The 2022-23 season, her final at the collegiate level, became primetime for two simple reasons. Her illustrious career had landed her on the doorstep of basketball record books with Pete Maravich’s all-time college basketball scoring record in touching distance.
Additionally, despite her unprecedented and unbelievable success, she had yet to secure a National Championship in her favor, making the entire season a long journey to see if the Hawkeyes’ superstar could succeed.
On the first front, she was successful, crossing his mark on March 3, 2024, in a game against the Ohio State Buckeyes. During this time period, her popularity was growing to unparalleled levels, leading the Wall Street Journal to credit her with the moniker “GOAT of TV Ratings.”
After a record-breaking national championship game, the one against Ohio State saw 3.9 million viewers tune in, making it the most-watched women’s regular season college basketball game this century. Then, began her historic 2024 run.
Already near the top of the all-time greatest college basketball player charts, she added more pelts on the wall during the 2024 NCAA tournament. As she squared off with LSU again in a hotly anticipated rematch in the Elite Eight, the game drew 12.3 million viewers, breaking the all-time women’s college basketball viewership record.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t for long, as her next battle against UConn in the Final Four outpaced that number with 14.2 million viewers. Once again, it wasn’t enough.
The 2024 NCAA Championship Game – the Iowa Hawkeyes vs. the South Carolina Gamecocks – is the last match of Clark’s collegiate career. Set aside the fact that it drew 18.9 million viewers, far outclassing her previous two milestones.
The viewership number made the game the single-most-watched basketball game since 2019, a list that includes men’s and women’s college basketball, the WNBA, the Olympics, and the NBA, playoffs included. It also became the first time in history that the women’s national title game outdrew the men’s counterpart.
Her time at the collegiate level came to an end with that fateful game. But her impact on basketball was just beginning. The next stop in her journey? The WNBA.
Clark’s Impact on the WNBA
The first step on that journey was the 2024 WNBA Draft. Widely expected to go first overall to the Indiana Fever, a loaded draft class that also featured fellow college standouts like Cameron Brink and Angel Reese averaged nearly 2.5 million viewers, the most in the league’s history.
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert gave major props to Clark for driving a historic audience towards the product. “It’s the way she plays the game. The logo threes, the way she sees the court.” Additionally, she gave a ton of credit to the storylines that naturally came as a byproduct of her success.
“I also think about last year’s National Championship with LSU and her rivalry that was built with Angel Reese. Iowa didn’t win, but they beat undefeated South Carolina in the Final Four.” That story would play out over multiple seasons of her career.
“Then click to the following year, they’re playing LSU in the Elite Eight, they play UConn on that Friday night, then they play undefeated South Carolina on that Monday. It made for great storylines. She raises the whole level of play for everybody. Social media helps get the storylines out, get the messaging out.”
The compliments from Engelbert were raining down before the Fever superstar had ever set foot on a WNBA court. Then came one of the most legendary first seasons in basketball history, regardless of gender.
The unanimous Rookie of the Year, Clark broke the longest playoff drought in the league, en route to averaging over 19 points and eight assists per game. The latter mark, over the course of the season, broke both the single-game and season record.
As a result, she had an MVP buzz attached to her name and finished as a finalist for the league’s most prestigious award. But, like at the collegiate level, her impact on the sport far exceeded the 94 feet of hardwood.
Her presence, almost overnight, changed the entire WNBA attendance landscape. The Fever led the league in average attendance, becoming the first team in WNBA history to draw more than 300,000 fans in a season.
On a singular basis as well, the final game of the season for Indiana, against the Washington Mystics, set the all-time record at 20,711 fans in attendance.
But the impact on ratings was something to behold. 36 of the Fever’s 40 games were nationally televised. Prior to the 2024 season, no WNBA game had averaged more than a million viewers in the last 15 years.
Last year, 23 games crossed that number, and Clark was a player on the court for 20 of them. Across the board, her matchups became appointment viewing. For current WNBA broadcasters, the list of their viewership records tells a startling story.
ESPN, CBS, ABC, ESPN2, Ion, and NBATV all had their highest viewership ever in a game involving the Indiana Fever, with half of them also involving her key rival Angel Reese with the Chicago Sky. For ESPN and CBS, which recorded over 2.2 million viewers each, it was the highest number since 2001.
For Ion, seven games crossed the million viewers mark, each involving Clark and the Fever. And for NBA TV, the viewership for a single WNBA game record broke eight different times, culminating in a matchup against the Las Vegas Aces, which drew more viewers than every game on the NBA side of the bracket.
Even marquee games, like the All-Star Game, saw their record shattered with 3.44 million viewers tuning in, two million clear of the previous record set in 2003.
Women’s Basketball Has Its Nexus
For every major sport, competition drives interest, and interest draws viewership. But across the sporting landscape, one phenomenon is a common factor in its success – a singular transcendent entity.
For baseball, it was Babe Ruth. For hockey, Wayne Gretzky. Golf had its own version in Tiger Woods. Even the NBA, whose Finals were recorded and then played on tape delay, until the Magic Johnson-Larry Bird rivalry took center stage.
Even then, it wasn’t until the arrival of Michael Jordan that the league became the global giant it is today. For the WNBA and women’s basketball at large, Caitlin Clark has become that nexus. For the last four years, ever since that fateful night in November of 2020, she has slowly become the sun of the women’s basketball universe.
While the league is brimming with unbelievable, excellent talent, the impact Clark has, both on the game and on audience interest, is singular. And at this point, undeniable.