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Caitlin Clark’s return to the University of Iowa’s Carver-Hawkeye Arena for the WNBA preseason game between the Indiana Fever and Brazilian national team averaged 1.3 million viewers on ESPN, the network announced Tuesday.
The average viewership for Sunday’s game was 13% higher than ESPN’s 2024 regular-season average for the WNBA.
The Fever-Brazil television audience peaked at 1.6 million, and the game drew a sellout crowd of 15,000 at Carver-Hawkeye, where the average paid ticket price on the resale market was $440.
Flora Kelly, vice president of research at ESPN, said on social media that only two of 57 NBA preseason games broadcast by ESPN since 2010 drew a larger audience than the Fever-Brazil matchup, and both of those games featured Lebron James.
Clark, starting her second season with the Fever, scored 16 points in less than 19 minutes of playing time in Indiana’s 108-44 victory. She sat out the previous day’s preseason opener in Indiana due to a leg injury.
Clark became the NCAA Division I all-time scoring leader playing for Iowa. Sunday’s game marked her first time playing at Carver-Hawkeye since she left the Hawkeyes. Her No. 22 jersey was retired in a ceremony she attended at the arena after Iowa’s 76-69 win over Southern California on Feb. 2.
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