How the WNBA is preparing for Caitlin Clark and the historic 2024 draft class

By Weston Blasi

Clark goes to Indiana Fever with No. 1 pick in draft. Ticket prices for Fever's road games are already up 151% compared with last season.

The "Catilin Clark effect" has left women's college basketball, and it's coming for the WNBA.

Thanks in large part to Clark, who this season broke the record for most points scored in Division I basketball, women's college basketball had a record-breaking year. The TV ratings for the women's March Madness final were higher than for the men's, and the WNBA is hoping to capitalize on that momentum.

As expected, Clark was the No. 1 overall selection in Monday night's historic 2024 WNBA Draft by the Indiana Fever, and accommodations are already being made in preparation for her arrival.

The Las Vegas Aces recently moved its July 2 game against the Fever from the 12,000-seat Michelob Ultra Arena where the team normally plays to the T-Mobile Arena (TMUS), which has 18,000 seats. The venue change for the game, which is set to be Clark's first in Las Vegas, was due to huge ticketing demand and a need for a stadium with a "larger capacity," the team said.

In fact, ticketing demand across the WNBA has seen a drastic increase in recent weeks.

The average purchase price for Indiana Fever road games in 2024 is at $108, which is 151% more than the $43 price from 2023, according to event marketplace TickPick.

The average resale price for Fever home games so far is $182 - a 136% increase from last year, according to SeatGeek. The Fever ranked second-to-last in home attendance last season.

"What some may have thought would just be a trend around interest in women's sports has proven over the past few years that it's not going anywhere," Rebecca Hendel, Vice President of data services company Endeavor Analytics, told MarketWatch. Hendel has over 10 years of sponsorship and endorsement valuation experience with pro sports leagues and teams.

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For fans who watched a lot of women's March Madness this season, and particularly Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes, don't worry: you're still going to see plenty of the NCAA's all-time leading scorer in the WNBA.

The WNBA released its 2024 national broadcast schedule this week, and Clark, assuming she is selected by the Fever, will play 36 of her 40 regular-season games this season on national TV. The WNBA schedule features games broadcast on ABC, ESPN, CBS, NBATV and Amazon Prime (AMZN). The entirety of the WNBA playoffs will be broadcast on Disney's (DIS) family of channels.

Last season, the WNBA had a strong ratings performance. In 2023, viewership was up 21% from 2022 for national broadcast games, and ??the league's average attendance of 6,615 fans was the WNBA's highest since the 2018 season.

"The significant rise in key business metrics is a testament to the captivating games being played and the WNBA's expanding appeal," WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert said at the conclusion of the 2023 season. "This surge in interest not only showcases the immense talent and athleticism on the court but also highlights the compelling narratives that continue to emerge about the players and the league."

Still, the WNBA has a long way to go when its television viewership is compared with women's college basketball, at least when looking at March Madness.

TV viewership for an average WNBA game was up from 379,000 in 2022 to 505,000 in 2023, a strong increase, but the interest in women's college basketball this postseason was on a different level. Viewership for regular-season women's college games has frequently been over a million, and the Final Four and championship game viewership for March Madness set viewership records at an average of 10.8 million and 18.87 million, respectively.

Read on: These 10 college athletes are making over $1 million a year in NIL deals

Will Clark's star dim in the WNBA because it gets fewer viewers than college basketball?

"She is going to maintain that popularity," sports attorney Mit Winter told MarketWatch, while adding her spotlight will be "just as much in the WNBA as she could in college."

"We have not yet seen someone with the endorsement power of Clark go from women's college basketball to the WNBA in the NIL era," NIL attorney Darren Heitner told MarketWatch about her marketability.

Clark had as much as $3.4 million of estimated NIL earnings this year, putting her above any other women's basketball player. Clark has nearly three million followers on social media - and has sponsorship deals with Gatorade (PEP), State Farm, Nike (NKE) and Xfinity.

In Monday's WNBA Draft, Clark was followed by Stanford's Cameron Brink with the No. 2 pick by the Los Angeles Sparks. The Chicago Sky picked South Carolina's Kamilla Cardoso third, while the Sparks picked again and got Tennessee's Rickea Jackson fourth. Ohio State guard Jacy Sheldon went with the fifth pick to the Dallas Wings.

The much-anticipated 2024 WNBA Draft class comes at a pivotal time for the league. The WNBA is set to negotiate a new TV media rights deal at the end of 2025 (currently $60 million annually), a deal that commissioner Engelbert wants to "at least double."

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Many fans are excited at the prospect of seeing Clark play professionally, but at least one person in the WNBA doesn't expect Clark to dominate the league right away.

"Reality is coming," Phoenix Mercury guard and the WNBA's all-time leading scorer Diana Taurasi, said on ESPN this week. "We all went through it. That happens on the NBA side, and you're going to see it on this side. You look superhuman playing against 18-year-olds, but you're going to come with some grown women that have been playing professional basketball for a long time."

-Weston Blasi

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04-15-24 2025ET

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