By Dan Zaksheske

Copyright outkick

The WNBA playoffs began on Sunday, for those of you who didn’t realize. Based on the TV ratings, that included quite a few people. The Indiana Fever (without Caitlin Clark) faced the Atlanta Dream on ABC, and the game drew 951,000 viewers, according to Sports Business Journal. That sounds like a good number, but there are many important caveats. Defenders of the WNBA will say that the game went head-to-head with the NFL, which is true. The Fever’s game started at 3 p.m. ET, directly opposite the end of the early-afternoon NFL games and crossing through the start of the late-afternoon games. Same Slot, Same Network—Half the Audience That said, last year’s Fever playoff game, in which Clark participated, also aired opposite the NFL at the same time on the same network. It averaged 1.84 million viewers, or nearly double this year’s number. Plus, as the media ratings tracking sites continue to point out, Nielsen recently updated its methodology for counting viewers, resulting in higher numbers for all sports across the board. In nearly every ratings post on Sports Media Watch, for example, the website explains this. Here is what the site posted about the record ratings for the U.S. Open tennis final: “Keep in mind that between Nielsen’s new ‘Big Data + Panel’ methodology and its February expansion of out-of-home viewing, this year’s figures have a built-in advantage over past years.” So, numbers are inflated this year compared to last, and the Fever still drew half the audience of last season. It means this year’s numbers are even worse than they look initially. In the Sports Business Journal article, the headline includes the following: “WNBA Playoffs start strong (even without Caitlin Clark).” Yet they did not include the important caveat about the change in methodology and touted the WNBA’s improvement over last year without proper context. “The opening weekend of the WNBA Playoffs averaged 544,000 viewers across three games on ESPN, up 28% from last year,” SBJ wrote. No Clark, No Crowd All of Caitlin Clark’s games in 2024 that aired on a major broadcast or cable network (CBS, ABC, or ESPN) averaged at least 1 million viewers. The Fever couldn’t hit that number in a playoff game without her, which is a bad sign for the WNBA. However, few outlets are noting that. As of Wednesday afternoon, ESPN hadn’t posted the viewership for the first day of the WNBA playoffs. They likely don’t want to say that the Fever had nearly a 50% drop from Game 1 last year. Now, they are likely going to pump up that the rest of the WNBA saw higher viewership than last year, which is true. But, again, that’s without accounting for the bump due to Nielsen’s changes. More than likely, viewership was flat, year-over-year, which means the league isn’t growing from its massive jump in popularity last season. Of course, the simple answer as to why that might be the case is Caitlin Clark. She missed 70% of the Indiana Fever’s games this year and that curbed interest in the WNBA as a whole. The WNBA can wave the “up 28%” banner all week, but strip out the new math, and you’re left with the same truth: star power drives interest. No Clark, no crowd. Until that changes, “growth” is just a headline.