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All eyes were on Aliyah Boston at the end of March.
A women’s basketball Final Four record audience of 5.5 million people tuned in to see Boston, the No. 1 overall pick of the Indiana Fever in April’s draft, and her top-ranked South Carolina Gamecocks battle fellow superstar Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes.
While that instant classic turned out to be Boston’s final collegiate game, fans stuck around for an encore two days later, as another record-shattering audience of nearly 10 million people watched LSU easily defeat Iowa for the national championship. It was believed to be the most-watched game in women’s college basketball history, drawing more viewers than the Sugar and Orange Bowls in January, the 2021 Masters, or any NHL Stanley Cup Final game in the last 50 years.
The avalanche of interest in women’s basketball has reached the pro level, too, as viewership of last year’s WNBA regular season was up 16% year over year and up 22% in the playoffs. It was the highest-rated WNBA regular season in 14 years and highest-rated WNBA playoffs since 2007.
With fans and brands pouring dollars and attention into the sport, the arrow is pointed directly up for women’s basketball. Meanwhile, the trajectory has gone in the opposite direction for the Indiana Fever, who feel further from relevance than they’ve ever been.
The proud franchise once qualified for 12 consecutive WNBA postseasons, a span that included three WNBA Finals appearances and the team’s lone WNBA championship. But the Fever are now coming off a tumultuous six-season stretch, having lost over a hundred more games than they’ve won (45-147). One of the WNBA’s models of stability through the first 15 years of its history, the team is on its fourth coach since 2017. New head coach Christie Sides will be overseeing a roster that has already released three top-four picks since 2020 and finished dead last in attendance in 2022.
That’s where Boston comes back into the equation. Coming off a heralded career where she was one of the faces of her sport, the 2022 Wooden Award winner has been tabbed as the missing centerpiece to resuscitate the moribund Fever. The consensus top prospect in the WNBA Draft, Boston broke South Carolina’s 40-year-old double-doubles record and became the only player in NCAA women’s hoops history to win both Naismith Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year honors. She accomplished that feat in the same season.
A four-time SEC Defensive Player of the Year and a double-digit scorer despite routinely drawing double- and triple-teams, she was the nation’s most commanding all-around force during her college career.
“It’s cool for people to think of me as dominant,” Boston said when reflecting on her college career, “I love that word. That’s something that [South Carolina head coach] Dawn Staley instilled in me—just to be dominant every time I step on the floor.”
Boston’s ability to dominate games without scoring a ton of points has drawn on-court comparisons to Fever great Tamika Catchings, but the opportunities to transcend her sport off the court seem more accessible today than they were during Catchings’ rise to stardom in the mid-2000s. Thanks to soaring viewership totals and social media followings, players like Boston, Iowa’s Clark, LSU’s Angel Reese and UConn’s Paige Bueckers have become household names in hoops-fan circles before ever playing a professional game. That has created exciting possibilities for the next generation of women’s college stars to remain in the sports-fan consciousness as they transition to the WNBA hardwood.
“There’s a lot of conversation about players like Angel [Reese] and Caitlin [Clark], and I don’t think when they leave college that conversation is just going to stop,” argued Boston. “We just had one of the most-viewed drafts ever [it was the most viewed since 2004], and I think fans will be drawn into the pro game.”
“It’s just going to continue to grow.”
Boston’s star power helped her deftly approach the NIL floodgates after they burst open during her final two seasons at South Carolina. She partnered with Orangetheory Fitness on a custom, hour-long workout routine last fall and has also inked deals with brands like Crocs and Bojangles. Boston even appeared in an ad last year for “Top Gun: Maverick.”
The easygoing Boston, a U.S. Virgin Islands native, draws you in with her razor-sharp intellect and endearing smile. But as impressive as her personality and hair highlights are, those sponsorships came from being the face of college basketball’s best team—a squad that went 129-9 in her four years in Columbia.
In Indianapolis, Boston has inherited a completely different situation, joining a franchise that has limped to single-digit win totals in five of the last six years. She’s off to a terrific start, averaging 15.8 points, 6.0 rebounds and 1.3 blocks per game to earn WNBA Rookie of the Month honors in her first five contests as a pro.
Although they’ve been competitive in the losses, Indiana is just 1-4 in Boston’s debut season thus far. If she’s churning out double-doubles for a bottom-dweller on the next level, then hawking workouts, clunky shoes and fluffy biscuits—delicious as they may be—likely won’t be in the cards for her. Boston needs to grow into a superstar player, and the Fever need to return to contending for championships as a team. Reaching new heights of relevance isn’t possible unless their ascents occur in lockstep.
“You don’t just win with one player, but Aliyah is a big piece of the puzzle,” said Fever General Manager Lin Dunn. “We can definitely benefit from the explosion of interest that we saw in women’s college basketball this past season..”
The women’s basketball tidal wave continues to rise as the spotlight on its stars shines brighter than ever. There’s still time for the Fever and Boston to capitalize on this unique opportunity. The Fever can matter in this city like they never have before, while Boston can reach a level of stardom normally reserved strictly for her male counterparts with the Pacers. The door has swung wide open for the Fever and their newly crowned star player—now, they need to walk through the threshold together.•
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From Peyton Manning’s peak with the Colts to the Pacers’ most recent roster makeover, Schultz has talked about it all as a sports personality in Indianapolis for more than 15 years. Besides his written work with IBJ, he’s active in podcasting and show hosting. You can follow him on Twitter, @Schultz975.
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