Caitlin Clark — who helped draw crowds to arenas across the country and increase viewership during her senior year of college and then during her first year in the WNBA — was named. Times Athlete of the year.
Clark, 22, has helped sustain the growing popularity of the WNBA and women’s college basketball into 2024, wowing fans with her long-range shots and crisp passes.
In her first season with the Indiana Fever after a stellar career at Iowa, Clark won the Rookie of the Year award and was named to the All-WNBA first team – the first rookie to do so since 2008 – during the 2024 season.
The Fever superstar also set rookie season records for points and three-pointers made and became the first rookie to get a triple-double.
In addition to scoring, Clark also set the WNBA league’s all-time record for assists in a single season and most dimes in a single game.
In her final season in an Iowa Hawkeyes uniform, Clark set the NCAA Division I women’s basketball scoring record, then broke Hall of Famer Pete Maravich’s all-time record. Division I.
It was also the first year that the NCAA women’s basketball national championship game had a higher audience than the men’s title game, when powerhouse South Carolina completed an undefeated season with an 87-75 victory over the Hawkeyes. With 18.9 million viewersSouth Carolina-Iowa has overmatched games in this year’s NBA Finals and World Series.
Meanwhile, ratings for the WNBA regular season and playoffs — and not just games involving Clark — were up.
The WNBA delivered its most-watched regular season in 24 years, while the WNBA Finals, where the New York Liberty outlasted the Minnesota Lynx, was the most-watched WNBA Finals in 25 years.
Additionally, the WNBA saw its highest total attendance in 22 years. The September 19 game at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., between the Fever and the Washington Mystics set a WNBA single-game attendance record of 20,711.
It was one of three games to draw at least 20,000 fans this season, with 20,366 for Indiana against the Las Vegas Aces on July 2 and 20,333 for Indiana against Washington on June 7.
The Fever’s total home attendance in 2024 was 340,715 – a single-season record for a WNBA team.
Last week, Clark made his debut in Sportico’s List of Highest-Paid Female Athleteswith its revenues totaling $11.1 million. Only a fraction of Clark’s income comes from her WNBA salary, which was $100,000. The rest comes from endorsements.
CNN’s Thomas Schlachter contributed to this report.
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