The Indiana Fever's regular-season games on major broadcast networks averaged more than twice the audience of the WNBA semifinal openers, according to an OutKick review of television ratings. The Fever's 10 regular-season appearances on ABC, CBS and NBC drew an average of approximately 2.32 million viewers, while the two semifinal openers on Oct. 4 averaged about 1.16 million.
The gap amounts to roughly 100 percent more viewers per game, a difference of nearly 1.16 million. New York–Atlanta's Game 1 averaged 1.2 million viewers on ABC, while Las Vegas–Golden State averaged 1.12 million on NBC and Peacock. The semifinal openers aired on broadcast television, yet still could not approach the numbers Indiana generated during the regular season.
The contrast is sharpest when comparing games on the same network. Indiana's first-round opener against Las Vegas on Sept. 27 averaged 2.11 million viewers on ABC, even though it aired opposite NFL competition. One week later, New York–Atlanta's semifinal opener on ABC drew 1.2 million — about 76 percent fewer viewers. The stakes were higher in the playoffs, but the audience was smaller.
Seven of Indiana's 10 regular-season games on major networks exceeded two million viewers, and every one of the 10 drew a larger audience than either semifinal opener. The smallest audience came on May 30, when the Fever played at Portland on CBS and drew nearly 1.3 million viewers. In that game, Caitlin Clark scored just 6 points on 1-for-7 shooting, and Indiana trailed by as many as 26 points. A lopsided regular-season loss in May still outdrew both playoff openers in October.
At the high end, Indiana's Aug. 23 game against Chicago averaged 3.31 million viewers on NBC and Peacock, while its July 12 game against Las Vegas drew 2.64 million on those platforms. The New York Liberty's two regular-season meetings with Indiana on CBS each drew over 2.5 million viewers. By comparison, Sunday's Liberty–Dream semifinal opener drew 1.2 million on ABC.
The numbers also undercut the idea that other star players drive similar television audiences. Angel Reese, now with Atlanta, said in 2024 that people watch women's basketball «because of me too.» But New York facing Clark's Fever in the regular season drew more than twice the audience of New York facing Reese's Dream in the semifinals. Atlanta's first-round clincher averaged 1.2 million viewers on ESPN, below the 1.4 million for Dallas–Golden State on the same network that night.
None of this means the WNBA is in trouble. Before Clark arrived in 2024, the league had not had a game average one million viewers since 2008. Consistently clearing that mark represents real progress. The two semifinal openers also averaged about 10 percent more viewers than last year's pair, ranking second and third among semifinal Game 1 audiences since the league adopted its current format in 2016. The only opener ahead of them was last year's Fever–Aces game, which drew 1.4 million on ABC even with Clark sidelined by injury.
Indiana has also shown it can draw without Clark on the floor. On June 27, the Fever drew 1.57 million viewers against Los Angeles on CBS while Clark did not play. Even Indiana's least-watched first-round game, a 1.42 million-viewer appearance on Prime Video, outdrew every non-Fever first-round game and exceeded both semifinal openers on broadcast television.
The remaining teams now have an opportunity to give those viewers a reason to keep watching. Whether the audiences build as the series progress remains an open question, but for now the rest of the league is still trying to match numbers the Fever were putting up in May.