WNBA regular season attendance up 48% over 2023 in Caitlin Clark, Reese’s rookie year | News, results, highlights, stats and gossip

The WNBA saw its highest total attendance in over two decades, and the 2024 draft class led by Indiana Fever’s Caitlin Clark and Chicago Sky’s Angel Reese helped the league set all-time records in viewership and merchandise sales.

According to Friday’s press release, an average of 9,807 fans watched WNBA games during the 2024 regular season, a 48% increase over the 2023 season.

The league was watched by more than 2.35 million total viewers, the most tickets sold by the WNBA in 22 years.

According to the WNBA, teams also recorded sellouts in 154 games, a 242% increase from last season’s total of 45 sellouts.

The Fever, which selected Clark with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2024 draft, set a WNBA record with total home attendance of 340,715.

The September 19 game between the Fever and the Washington Mystics in Washington, D.C. additionally set a single-season attendance record, attracting 20,711 fans.

The WNBA also set multiple broadcast standards in 2024, with the league reporting a record total of 54 million unique viewers and 22 individual broadcasts that averaged more than one million viewers.

Both ESPN and CBS Sports were the most-watched WNBA regular seasons in history, and ABC’s broadcast of the 2024 All-Star Game saw a 305 percent increase in viewership as 3.4 million viewers watched Clark and Reese compete against the American on the WNBA team Olympic team.

In addition to the Fever’s impact on the league’s total attendance, Clark’s team also played a significant role in the league’s sharp increase in viewership. Indiana games that set new WNBA viewership records on ABC, ESPN2, CBS and NBA TV.

Meanwhile, WNBA viewership in Canada increased 148 per cent compared to the 2023 season following the league’s May announcement of its upcoming expansion franchise, which will be headquartered in Toronto.

The league also set an all-time record in merchandise sales, with sales on the WNBA website and at the New York flagship store increasing 601 percent compared to the 2023 season.

According to Boardroom and Fanatics, as of August 21, the best-selling WNBA jerseys manufactured by Fanatics belonged to Clark and Reese, followed by Sabrina Ionescu of the New York Liberty and Kate Martin and A’ja Wilson of the Las Vegas Aces .

The WNBA will now look to increase interest in the league following the conclusion of Clark and Reese’s seasons as the 2024 playoffs enter the second round. The semifinals will begin on Sunday with an afternoon game of the Aces at Liberty, followed by an evening contest with the Connecticut Sun at the Minnesota Lynx.