Caitlin Clark’s WNBA debut helps ESPN set viewership record for league game on network

NEW YORK (AP) — ESPN’s broadcast of the Connecticut Solar’s recreation towards Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever had the best viewership for a WNBA recreation on the community.

The Solar’s 92-71 win over the Fever in Clark’s WNBA debut on the league’s opening evening on Tuesday drew a mean of two.1 million viewers on ESPN2, ESPN+ and Disney+, together with a excessive of two.3 million viewers between 7:45 p.m. and seven:59 p.m. That topped ESPN’s earlier mark of almost 1.5 million viewers for a Phoenix Mercury-Connecticut Solar recreation on Could 22, 2004, in Diana Taurasi’s rookie season.

The second recreation between Phoenix and the two-time defending champion Las Vegas Aces averaged 464,000 viewers, with the 2 video games averaging 1.28 million — a 192% enhance over the league’s common final yr for broadcasts on ESPN.

Clark set the NCAA all-time scoring report at Iowa final season and she or he was a giant purpose why a report 18.9 million viewers tuned in to the nationwide championship recreation, which her Hawkeyes misplaced to unbeaten South Carolina. Clark’s arrival to the WNBA has already been a giant increase for the league. The WNBA draft had report viewership, and three groups have already moved their video games to greater arenas to maintain up with the demand for tickets to look at her play.

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AP WNBA:

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