Fever Upset of Dream Brings Ratings Boost to WNBA Semis

The Indiana Fever have had a difficult season. Five rotation players have sustained season-ending injuries, including star Caitlin Clark, who played in just 13 games all season. 

The team also waived veteran DeWanna Bonner, one of its key offseason acquisitions. Bonner, who signed with the Phoenix Mercury in July, said the “fit did not work out.”

And yet, the Fever still produced their most successful season in a decade.

The Fever defeated the Atlanta Dream on Thursday night—despite trailing for all but the final seven seconds of the second half—and will advance past the first round of the WNBA playoffs for the first time since 2015. 

The win is an affirmation of the team’s offseason coaching change. Indiana hired 2023 Coach of the Year Stephanie White, who had previously coached the team in 2015 and 2016—the last two times it made the playoffs. 

“I’ve had five coaches in eight years. I’ve been on the worst-record teams here [with] the Indiana Fever. … I’ve never had a coach that poured into me, respectfully, like Steph has,” Kelsey Mitchell, who has played her entire career in Indiana, said after the game.

Clark, who has not played since mid-July but has continued to be present on the sidelines, even tweeted White’s name in all caps after the game.

With Clark gone, Mitchell took over as the team’s top scorer, averaging more than 20 points for the first time in her career. She was named an All-Star for the third straight season, alongside Clark and center Aliyah Boston. 

Ratings Boost

The Fever have remained the league’s top draw despite the absence of Clark. That’s showcased by early WNBA playoff viewership numbers as the first two games of the Dream and Fever series have averaged about 1.2 million viewers on ESPN networks, according to Nielsen Big Data + Panel numbers.

While that’s down compared to last year’s two Fever postseason games, which averaged more than 2 million viewers (and came before Nielsen’s measurement updates), it’s still more than any other WNBA series. ESPN thus emerges as a big winner, as it is guaranteed at least three more Indiana games. The Fever will battle the Las Vegas Aces in a best-of-five second-round series.

However, the first game of that series will be Sunday and will directly face off with Week 3 of the NFL season. The WNBA has felt a big hit on viewership when facing the NFL, as seen by the difference in viewership between the first two games of the Dream-Fever series. Game 1 drew 951,000 viewers Sunday on ABC, while Game 2 averaged 1.5 million viewers Tuesday on ESPN.

Starting next year, assuming the season is not derailed by a work stoppage, the WNBA will have additional flexibility to avoid the NFL once it begins its new media deal. ESPN, which has held the rights to the WNBA playoffs for more than 20 years, will air two of the first-round series, while NBCUniversal and Amazon will each take one. The final two rounds will rotate among the three partners.

The additional partners may also help curb the issue of playoff games being demoted to ESPN2 or ESPNU. The three do-or-die Game 3s were scheduled for ESPN2, including the two nail-biters Thursday, in favor of college football. Game 3 of the semifinals next Friday will be on ESPN2, while any potential Game 5s are scheduled to air on ESPNU.