21-05-2025
All Eyes on Caitlin Clark Encore as the WNBA Season Tips Off
The 2025 WNBA season—the last under the league's current collective bargaining agreement—tips off Friday night with a 13th franchise and the prospect of a title run for the Indiana Fever, and while it'll be tough to match the explosive growth of the 2024 campaign, all the requisite pieces would seem to be in place.
On the heels of a 22-year attendance high and a TV ratings surge that thumbed its nose at the cord-cutting trends, the WNBA heads back to the court with a mission to convert even more casual observers into fans than was the case a year ago. Including the All-Star Game, 23 regular-season telecasts in 2024 delivered 1 million viewers or better, a stat that really jumps off the page given that it had been 16 years since a WNBA outing had reached the seven-figure mark.
Rookie sensation Caitlin Clark and the Fever were featured in 21 of those telecasts, and as such 41 of Indiana's 44 games will air on national television this time around. Clark & Co. will pop up in five games on ABC and another three on CBS, and the beefed-up reach of broadcast gives the league its best shot at shattering the ratings records it set a year ago. Early indications have been promising; on May 4, during one of the busiest sports programming days on the spring calendar, Indiana's exhibition win against the Brazilian national team averaged 1.28 million viewers on ESPN.
If the Fever can deliver an audience of that scale in a preseason scrimmage, the sky's the limit when Clark takes on archrival Angel Reese and her Chicago Sky this Saturday in ABC's 3 p.m. ET window. The Clark vs. Reese angle has been doing numbers since the two squared off against each other in college—Iowa's 94-87 victory over LSU in their 2024 Elite Eight grudge match averaged a whopping 12.3 million viewers, up from 9.92 million for the previous year's title tilt—and this weekend's game should be no exception.
As a bonus, there are no NBA playoff games scheduled opposite the Sky-Fever broadcast, which leads out of an arguably more compelling 1 p.m. matchup. In the early window, ABC gets the season rolling as reigning MVP A'ja Wilson and the Las Vegas Aces suit up against defending champs Breanna Stewart and the New York Liberty.
The W faces much stiffer competition in its Friday night tipoff on Ion, as the doubleheader will have to contend with Game 6 of the haywire Celtics-Knicks series. If New York can nail down a win on its home court, a trip to take on the Indiana Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals is in the offing. Whatever the result, Friday night's game is expected to suck all the air out of the room, thereby lowering guidance somewhat for Ion's two-fer.
Despite the big doings at the Garden, Ion's opening slate is formidable, as the network tips off its season with the Minnesota Lynx and Dallas Wings in the 7:30 p.m. ET window, followed by the franchise premiere of the Golden State Valkyries in the late slot. The expansion team will debut against Cameron Brink and the Los Angeles Sparks, while the early window pits the Lynx against No. 1 draft pick Paige Bueckers.
For all the star power on display—earlier this month, Wilson's signature A'One shoe sold out just five minutes after the $110 kicks bowed on Nike's website—Clark is the WNBA's biggest draw. She appeared in 21 of the league's 23 million-plus telecasts, and Indiana's offseason moves have our friends in the desert convinced that the Fever are built for a deep playoff run. Indiana is listed at 3-to-1 odds to win it all in October, up from 25-to-1 a year ago. The only clubs the Vegas books are hotter on at this stage of the game are the Liberty (+225) and Sin City's hometown team (+275).
The impact Clark has had on the WNBA coincides with an impressive spike in spending on women's sports. Per a recent report from the TV ad tracker EDO, ad spend more than doubled in 2024, as the networks booked $244.4 million in sales, a sharp improvement over the $102.3 million invested the previous year. That skyrocketing ad growth was fueled by Disney's tireless promotion of the women's game, as well as the establishment of tailored investment units at agency giants GroupM and Publicis Media. The latter firm sees the value of the global women's sports marketplace growing 300% to $1.28 billion in the next three years.
Looking ahead, the WNBA's new 11-year, $2.2 billion media rights deal kicks in with the start of the 2026 season, which also marks the debut of the Toronto and Portland expansion teams. Before anyone gets too comfortable, however, the league and its players' association will need to hammer out the terms of a new CBA. The last negotiation boosted the players' maximum salaries from $117,500 in 2019 to $215,000 in 2020, and the new CBA could see the max payout approach the $1 million mark. Particulars related to revenue-sharing, roster caps, family-planning benefits and the rules pertaining to draft eligibility are also on the agenda.
Clark made $76,535 in her rookie season, and is set to see a 2% pay bump this time around ($78,066). The highest-paid WNBA player in 2025 is Clark's teammate Kelsey Mitchell, who is set to earn a base supermax salary of $249,244.
The current CBA expires on Halloween, which gives the league and the players' union ample time to hash out a new agreement. The players have not ruled out a work stoppage in the event the two parties can't come to terms ahead of the deadline.
In the meantime, everyone on both sides of the labor divide wants to give the Nielsen dials an even more rigorous workout in 2025. Saturday afternoon's rekindling of the Clark-Reese rivalry could very well top the 2.54 million viewers ESPN delivered with the Fever's final postseason appearance, an 87-81 loss to Connecticut. Final live-same-day ratings for the Fever-Sky battle are expected to be available by Tuesday afternoon.
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