Paige Bueckers’s WNBA Debut Delivers 121% Ratings Bump on Ion

Caitlin Clark is the WNBA’s biggest needle mover, but the pro debut of Paige Bueckers showed the Bueckers Bump exists.

Friday’s opening-night game between Bueckers’s Dallas Wings and the Minnesota Lynx drew 639,000 viewers on Ion, the network announced Tuesday. The back half of Ion’s Friday doubleheader—the first official game of the Golden State Valkyries, who faced the Los Angeles Sparks—drew 581,000 viewers. 

The average of the two games is 612,000 viewers, a 121% increase from the 277,000 comparable window last year (Washington Mystics vs. Connecticut Sun, Seattle Storm vs. Lynx), though that was not on opening night.

Ion averaged 677,000 viewers for the 43 games it broadcast in 2024, a 133% increase from 2023. However, excluding broadcasts that included Clark and the Indiana Fever, Friday’s doubleheader would be the second- and third-most-watched games ever on Ion, according to Sports Media Watch. 

One day later, Clark and Fever drew 2.7 million viewers against Angel Reese and the Chicago Sky on ABC, the most-watched game ever on ESPN platforms, regular season or playoffs. WNBA regular-season games on ESPN platforms last year averaged 1.2 million viewers.

The first Wings game on ESPN platforms will be June 3 on ESPN against the Storm. They have two games on ABC this season: July 13 against the Fever and Aug. 17 vs. the Las Vegas Aces.

Bueckers did not have a particularly good game in her debut, scoring just 10 points and grabbing 7 rebounds on 3-for-10 shooting. But the No. 1 pick in the 2025 draft bounced back Monday with 19 points, 6 rebounds, and 8 assists on 50% from the field in a Wings loss to the Storm.