Despite no Caitlin Clark, Fever-Sky broadcast drew nearly 2 millions viewers

Yahoo

2 days ago

When the WNBA national schedule was announced last March, one of the most potentially significant games from a viewership perspective was the June 7 game between the Indiana Fever and Chicago Sky on CBS. The meeting was the league's first-ever regular-season primetime game on national television — and it was no coincidence that CBS and the WNBA worked together to feature a game involving Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese.
Games airing on network television entities such as CBS or ABC bring more eyeballs, given network reach over cable, and reach is very important for the growth of any pro sports league. The game was one of eight regular-season games the CBS television network was scheduled to air during the 2025 WNBA season.
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Of course by the time the game rolled around, Clark had been sidelined with a quad injury — a bummer for the audience. The game itself was also not close: The Fever dismantled the Sky 79-52 at the United Center despite missing Clark and head coach Stephanie White.
How did the game do viewership-wise? CBS said on Tuesday it had averaged 1.924 million viewers, making it the third most-watched WNBA game on any network this season. Sports Media Watch noted it was the eighth-largest WNBA regular-season audience since 2001, and the 10th-largest including the playoffs. Of those games, it was the second-most watched that did not include Clark, behind Game 5 of last year's WNBA Finals.
The most-watched game this season was also contested by these two teams: The Fever's 93-58 win over the Sky on May 17 drew 2.7 million viewers on ABC. That set a record for the most-viewed WNBA regular-season game across ESPN networks and is believed to be the most-viewed WNBA regular-season game in 25 years, since the era when NBC aired the WNBA. The Fever-Liberty on CBS drew 2.22 million viewers and is the second most-watched game of the 2025 season.
These data points give you an immediate sense of Clark's popularity (newsflash: it's massive). It also is a nice story for the league in that they drew nearly 2 million viewers in a game Clark did not play. Last June, the Fever and Sky drew 2.25 million viewers for a CBS game, which at the time marked the WNBA's most-watched game in 23 years.
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Big picture: The numbers continue the trend from last year when the WNBA had 22 regular-season games that averaged more than one million viewers — the first time since 2008 that a WNBA game topped one million viewers.
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Chicago Sky, Indiana Fever, WNBA, Sports Business
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