Caitlin Clark Delivered Another Mind-Boggling WNBA Ratings Bonanza For ABC
The WNBA had a chance to stage an All-Star Game that was anything but ordinary on Saturday. It took advantage in masterful fashion.
Rather than the traditional East-versus-West format, the league pitted its own All-Stars against the U.S. Olympic team. The Paris Olympics begin Friday, so the event was more than a publicity stunt — it was a chance for Team USA to face perhaps stiffer competition than it will at any time over the next two weeks.
The format had only been employed once before, in 2021, when Arike Ogunbowale scored a game-high 26 points to lead Team WNBA to a 93-85 win over the USA Women’s Team in Las Vegas ahead of the Tokyo Olympics.
This year, the storyline was written even before the players took the court. Caitlin Clark — the league's most popular player and the source of a season-long ratings bonanza since she was selected first overall in the draft by the Indiana Fever — was left off the Olympic roster. She was the natural headliner for the WNBA All-Stars, in a game that amounted to a clever bit of a revenge.
Just as it did in 2021, Team WNBA won. Just as in 2021, Ogunbowale was named MVP. But the ratings, which received a Caitlin Clark-sized bump, told the story.
ABC announced Tuesday that the game saw a 305 percent ratings bump compared to 2023. With an average of 3.4 million viewers (4.1 million at its peak), it surpassed the viewership audience for the 2024 Draft and all but two WNBA events (games or otherwise) in the league's 27-year history.
Only the first two nationally televised WNBA games in 1997 had better ratings, in an era before cord-cutting transformed the ratings landscape.
As for Clark? She scored only four points on 2 of 9 shooting — 0-for-7 on three-pointers. Fellow rookie Angel Reese scored 12 points off the bench and grabbed 11 rebounds.
Ogunbowale stole the show, revealing her has the more worthy player of the title "biggest All-Star snub." Whether the game has bigger implications for the WNBA's momentum into the mainstream, or Team USA's chances in Paris, remains to be seen.