The scope of Clark’s popularity, which began during her record-setting career at the University of Iowa, can start to blur in the day-to-day madness that engulfed her first season, which ended with the Fever’s first playoff trip since 2016. Clark, 22, took the WNBA to new heights by every important business metric: attendance, television ratings, merchandise sales and social media engagement.

Offensive machine

Clark’s electric offensive game blends speed, shooting range and vision. Despite her rookie status, Clark stepped in as the engine of the Fever’s offense and guided the most efficient attack in franchise history. Clark, who averaged 19.2 points, 5.7 rebounds and 8.4 assists, ranked fifth in points and first in assists.

Clark’s magnetic pull, which began years ago in Iowa City, made a smooth transition to Indianapolis. During the regular season, the Fever drew an average of 17,036 fans according to AcrossTheTimeline.com — the highest in WNBA history. In one season, the Fever went from ranking 11th out of 12 teams in attendance to leading the league, easily topping the New York Liberty, which was second at 12,730.

More than 2.3 million fans attended WNBA games this season, a record during the modern 12-team era for the relatively young league that has endured struggles at the gate. What’s more, all 12 teams saw their total attendance increase by at least 17 percent from last season.

Even within this boom, Clark and the Fever stood alone. After averaging 4,067 fans in 2023, Indiana enjoyed more than a fourfold increase in its average attendance. No other team managed to double its attendance.

It’s one thing to be a hometown draw; it’s quite another to be a national phenomenon. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Clark’s box office appeal was her ability to pull fans no matter where she played. In Washington, Clark and the Fever drew 20,711 fans to Capital One Arena on Sept. 19, setting the WNBA record for a regular season game.

Time and again, attendance figures soared when Clark came to town.

Television ratings

There was little doubt the WNBA’s television profile was going to increase with Clark. After all, Iowa’s 2023 national championship game appearance against LSU had pulled in 9.9 million viewers, and its 2024 title game loss to South Carolina drew 18.9 million viewers, topping the men’s tournament final.

Indiana’s two first-round playoff games against the Connecticut Sun averaged 2.17 million viewers. That figure was nearly triple the audience for the 2023 WNBA Finals between the Las Vegas Aces and the Liberty, which averaged 728,000 viewers across four games.

According to data compiled by Sportsnaut.com, the Fever played in all of the WNBA’s 15 most-watched games this season. Remarkably, Indiana played in 19 of the 22 regular season games that drew at least 1 million viewers. ESPN’s broadcasts of WNBA games averaged a record 1.19 million viewers, according to the league. The network also televised its seven highest-rated WNBA games of all time this season; Clark’s Fever appeared in all seven. Similarly, CBS averaged a record 1.10 million viewers — boosted by its two highest-rated games featuring Indiana.

Clark’s Fever faced fellow rookie Angel Reese and the Chicago Sky on June 23 in the season’s most-watched game: 2.302 million viewers. By comparison, the highest-rated regular season game without Clark was May 18 between the Aces and the Los Angeles Sparks, which drew 1.34 million. It’s worth noting this aired on ABC immediately after a game between the Fever and Liberty.

Clark’s presence also drove major increases for tentpole WNBA events. The 2024 draft, when the Fever selected Clark with the first pick, drew 2.45 million viewers, more than quadruple the 2023 draft’s 572,000 viewers. And the 2024 All-Star Game, which pitted Clark, Reese and other WNBA stars against the U.S. women’s team headed to the Paris Olympics, drew 3.44 million viewers, more than four times the 850,000 who watched in 2023.

Popularity

Though Clark faced questions about how quickly she would transition from college to the pros, she earned all-star honors and was fourth in MVP voting as a rookie. Based on sheer popularity, she was in a league of her own. Clark ranked first in jersey sales, and she outpaced all of her colleagues, including MVP A’ja Wilson of the Aces, in all-star fan votes.

All told, the WNBA said it received more than 10 million all-star votes in 2024 — a fivefold increase from 2023.

Clark is seemingly everywhere online thanks to social clips of her logo three-pointers and daring passes. The WNBA reported it received almost 2 billion social media views during the season; the Fever, meanwhile, announced in August that it had received more than 800 million views over the previous four months. In other words, Indiana received more than twice as many views from mid-April to mid-August as the entire WNBA received during the 2023 regular season.

Google search patterns help clarify Clark’s singular impact. The search engine assigns a rating from 0 to 100 based on the popularity of a given term from that location: A score of 100 reflects the location with the highest popularity, while a score of 50 is half as popular.

From 2020 to 2023, Nevada received the highest popularity score — 100 — for the search term “WNBA.” That should come as no surprise given the success of the Aces, who won the 2022 and 2023 titles. Meanwhile, Clark’s home state of Iowa scored a 41 in 2020, a 40 in 2021, a 25 in 2022 and a 41 in 2023 — before breaking through in 2024 with a score of 100.

While Clark’s popularity has blown away the competition in the women’s ranks, she also has mounted a strong challenge to the NBA’s biggest star: LeBron James.

Time will tell whether Clark can approach James’s longevity, but her extraordinary effect on the WNBA has earned praise from the four-time NBA MVP.

“I have a great deal of respect for Caitlin Clark because I know exactly what it means to be drafted, be the face of a franchise and also get the scrutiny from a lot of people that don’t believe you’re ready for the next jump, don’t believe you’re ready for the big leagues and just don’t think that you belong,” James told Esquire recently. “She’s a transcendent player.”

Graphics by Artur Galocha. Illustration by The Washington Post with photo by Joe Buglewicz/Getty Images.