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CAITLIN Clark’s stardom has led six WNBA teams to switch up their schedules with less than two months to the start of the 2025 season.
The Indiana Fever star helped the WNBA break viewership and attendance records in 2024.
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A 2024 WNBA No. 1 overall pick, Clark won the Rookie of the Year and helped the Fever reach the playoffs for the first time in eight years.
The NCAA’s all-time leading scorer helped pack arenas as her presence has been labeled the “Caitlin Clark effect.”
Six WNBA teams have taken notice of Clark’s popularity and have shifted at least one upcoming game against the Fever to larger venues for the upcoming season.
Among the teams are the Dallas Wings, who revealed Wednesday that they will shift a June 27 contest with the Fever from College Park Center to the American Airlines Center – home of the Dallas Mavericks.
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That contest will be the first-ever WNBA game at the Mavericks’ home court.
The six WNBA teams that have shifted their schedules are the Atlanta Dream, Chicago Sky, Connecticut Sun, Wings, Las Vegas Aces, and Washington Mystics.
Each of those franchises, except the Mystics, moved their matchups with the Fever to venues that host teams of professional sports leagues.
The Aces and Mystics also moved games against other teams to bigger venues.
Both those teams, the Dream, and Sun all moved games to larger arenas last year and got attendance records for the franchises.
The increase from the changed games was so big that Washington averaged 6,541 fans and Atlanta averaged 4,743 yards per contest – more than the capacities of their regular home arena.
Washington and Clark’s Indiana squad set the single-game attendance record of 20,711 on September 19 in Capital One Arena, home of the NBA’s Washington Wizards.
The WNBA’s average attendance last year was 9,807 fans which was up 48 percent from the previous season’s 6,615 fan mark.
Clark helped the Fever average 17,274 fans at home which was an astounding 319 percent jump from 2023.
The Iowa Hawkeyes legend’s games also accounted for 33.5 percent of the league’s total attendance in 2024.
“She helped ticket sales,” Aces coach Becky Hammon said about Clark last year.
Clark’s road games saw arenas like State Farm Arena in Atlanta sell out 17,000+ seats from the team’s usual 3,500.
“I’m a part of history,” Fever teammate Kelsey Mitchell said last June about the packed crowds.
The 2025 WNBA season will begin on May 16 and end on September 11, followed by the league’s playoffs.
The regular season will have a record-high 44 games per team.
