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Following the Dallas Wings game in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Paige Bueckers got a surprise in the locker room: Former Criminal Minds star Shemar Moore greeted the Wings star following her 44-point performance, which tied the most points scored by a WNBA rookie.
Cynthia Cooper-Dyke, who scored 44 points for the now-defunct Houston Comets against the Sacramento Monarchs in 1997, held the record for 28 years.
Bueckers admitted at the WNBA All-Star Game in July that Moore was one of the celebrities she dreamed of seeing courtside at her games, but he was far from the only name to come out in Los Angeles. NBA players Chet Holmgren, Jabari Smith Jr., and Jalen Green were also in attendance, as well as writer and former ESPN analyst Jemele Hill.
The star attendees are a sign of the popularity of Bueckers, despite an abysmal season from the Wings, who are a game out of last place. On SI writer Ben Geffner even shared a photo of dozens of fans waiting outside Crypto.com Arena an hour after the game, hoping to catch Bueckers and the Wings team bus.
The 23-year-old rookie is undoubtedly one of the league’s biggest names. According to global sports and entertainment marketing company Two Circles, she is second in total social following in the WNBA behind only Angel Reese.
The Wings, despite a rough season, are third in road attendance, behind the Indiana Fever, who’ve had several road games moved to larger arenas, and the Las Vegas Aces, according to data from Across the Timeline.
The league has yet to release the list of highest-selling jerseys, but it’s likely Bueckers is on top. Bueckers is second in youth jersey sales this season, according to data from Outerstuff provided by OneTeam Partners. Caitlin Clark leads the group, with Reese, Sabrina Ionescu, and A’ja Wilson following Bueckers.
The Wings star has provided a boost as the WNBA continues to see incremental growth in its viewership and attendance this year, despite the absence of Clark, who has missed most of the season due to several injuries.
Bueckers is not going to provide the same transformational lift that Clark brought to the WNBA. The NCAA national championship was proof of that, as UConn’s national championship win in April drew less than half of the viewership that Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes drew against the South Carolina Gamecocks in 2024.
But it was also a foreshadowing of Bueckers being a complementary asset. The game still drew 8.5 million viewers, the third-most-watched national championship game of all time—behind Iowa’s 2023 and 2024 runs.
With the two stars attached to the hip for the rest of their careers, it should only mean continued attention for the WNBA.
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