NEW YORK. – A star-studded draft class headlined by the record-smashing Caitlin Clark is set to rock the WNBA when the season tips off on Tuesday (Wednesday in Manila), amid unprecedented interest in the league.
Surging ticket sales saw teams scrambling to move games into larger venues and the league days ago launched a charter flight program for players, pouring in a reported $50 million into the policy over the next two years.
Players and coaches said radical change has arrived for the WNBA, after decades when the men’s “Big Four” have maintained a chokehold on American sport.
“It’s not business as usual anymore. And this has been brewing for a while,” Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve told reporters.
“We’ve been on a wave. But this is like, you know, a bit more of a tsunami.”
Clark and a charismatic cast of fellow rookies that include the Chicago Sky’s Angel Reese and Los Angeles Sparks’ Cameron Brink have been given the lion’s share of the credit.
A record 2.45 million people tuned in to watch Clark go first overall to the Indiana Fever in the WNBA draft, after she toppled the all-time collegiate scoring record at Iowa.
Her college finale against South Carolina drew the biggest TV audience for a basketball game in the US–men’s or women’s, at any level of the sport–since 2019.
And Clark became sportswear manufacturer Fanatics’ best-selling draft pick in company history, with brands lining up to do business with the six-foot guard.
“Nobody’s been under a stronger spotlight, a bigger microscope in the women’s game, probably in the history of the game, than Caitlin Clark was. And she continually lived up to the moment,” said Hall of Famer Rebecca Lobo, an ESPN analyst who played in the league beginning in its 1997 inaugural year.
“She seems to be a player who’s a bit unfazed by what we would look at as pressure or expectation.”
The accelerated interest has not come as a surprise to veteran players.
The league enjoyed its most-watched season in more than two decades last year, buoyed by the popularity of the two “super teams”, the New York Liberty and Las Vegas Aces.
