The WNBA set a new regular-season attendance record Thursday night on the final night of games before the playoffs begin.
With Caitlin Clark in town, the Washington Mystics once again moved their matchup against the Indiana Fever to Capital One Arena, and set a record of 20,711 fans. The Mystics won 92–91, but it wasn’t enough to secure the final spot in the playoffs, and it was the team’s last game of the season.
Only twice has the WNBA drawn a larger crowd: on Sept. 16 of 2003 and 2007 during Finals games in Detroit. Both games recorded sellout crowds of 22,076 fans at the old Palace of Auburn Hills, according to data from Across The Timeline.
The now defunct Detroit Shock won three titles in the 2000s before moving to Tulsa in 2010 and ultimately becoming the Dallas Wings in 2016.
The previous regular-season record of 20,674 fans had stood since 1998. That game, and nine out of the next 10 highest-attended regular-season games in WNBA history, were all played in the same D.C. arena as Thursday night’s game.
Washington hosted the Fever in the larger space earlier this year, but drew 20,333 fans, just shy of breaking the record. The Aces also got close when Clark came to Las Vegas, drawing 20,366 fans to the larger-capacity T-Mobile Arena. But it was the final matchup of Clark’s rookie season that finally struck down the record that’s older than she is.
It’s not likely the Finals records set in Detroit will get broken in the playoffs this year, even with all the hype surrounding the league. The WNBA’s largest arena, the Lynx’ Target Center, fits a few thousand people less than The Palace.
Clark and the Fever will head to Connecticut for the team’s first playoff game since 2016 against the Sun. Tip-off is Sunday at 3 p.m. ET, right in the teeth of the NFL schedule—when the last two pre-Clark playoffs had performed surprisingly well.
