The first televised WNBA event of the 2025 season showed the league’s staying power following a historic year. However, as expected, it couldn’t reach the numbers from last year’s draft that featured Caitlin Clark.
The 2025 WNBA draft, which saw Paige Bueckers selected No. 1 by the Dallas Wings, averaged 1.25M viewers on ESPN on Monday, the second-most-watched draft in league history, ESPN announced Tuesday. This year’s number, however, is down 49% compared to last year’s record 2.45 million viewers. The 2025 draft did draw 119% more viewers than the 2023 WNBA draft.
The data follows the same trend as the 2024 WNBA season and the recent NCAA season. Last year’s WNBA season, which saw viewership and attendance records, dipped when Clark was eliminated from the playoffs. This year’s NCAA season also saw steep viewership drops compared to last year, Clark’s senior season. However, both still showed significant increases in ratings when compared to seasons before Clark’s mainstream emergence
Is It Sustainable?
It’s becoming clear that Clark is a ratings anomaly, and her stardom has left a lasting effect on women’s basketball. But with the WNBA season starting in a month—and considering Clark has not played an official game since Sept. 26—the question may now be whether the viewership will continue to increase in her sophomore season.
It may help that the Fever are expected to be more competitive and could be dark-horse contenders a year after finishing with the No. 6 seed and a .500 record last year. Indiana made a coaching change by bringing in former Coach of the Year Stephanie White and acquiring multiple-time All-Stars DeWanna Bonner and Natasha Howard in the offseason.
The Fever will have 41 of their 44 games on national television or streaming this year, the most of any team. They open their season on May 17 against Angel Reese and the Chicago Sky, a game that will air on ABC.
