Caitlin Clark Sets the Court on Fire – All Eyes Turn to the WNBA!
Caitlin Clark’s much-anticipated professional debut tips off Tuesday in Connecticut as the WNBA seeks to capitalize on unprecedented public interest.
A national television audience and sold-out Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville will bear witness to what could be the start of a new era in women’s sports as Clark plays in her first regular season game for the Indiana Fever.
“This is what you’ve worked for and dreamed of,” Clark told members of the media after practice Sunday, “and now you get to put your jersey on for the first real time and go out there and play? More than anything, just soak in the moment. We get to play on the biggest stage. There will be a lot of people there. It’s going to be loud. But you only play your first WNBA game once.”
No women’s basketball player has previously received the kind of attention and adulation as Clark, the two-time national player of the year out of Iowa and college basketball’s all-time leading scorer.
What to know about Caitlin Clark’s debut
Tipoff is set for 7:30 p.m. ET at Mohegan Sun Arena on ESPN 2.
Connecticut is a 5.5-point favorite in the matchup, according to FanDuel.
Clark hopes to fuel a significant turnaround for Indiana, coming off a 13-27 campaign. Connecticut was 27-13 in 2023.
Her 3,951 points in 139 games (28.4 points per game) at Iowa is the most ever in a college hoops career.
Her scoring prowess, though, pales in comparison to her off-the-court feats, bringing more attention to women’s college basketball than ever before. Clark recently appeared on a segment on “Saturday Night Live” to comically punch back at doubters of women’s sports.
The WNBA is hopeful that Clark’s star appeal will translate to the pros.
Her Hawkeyes fell to South Carolina in the NCAA title game on April 7, which drew 18.9 million TV viewers, topping the audience of 14.8 million that watched Connecticut beat Purdue in the men’s championship. It was the first time more people watched the women’s basketball final than the men’s, Nielsen said.
Clark’s entrance to the WNBA, not so coincidentally, comes as teams will, for the first time, fly charter for all games — like their male professional counterparts — and avoid security lines, cramped commercial spaces and layovers.
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert told NBC News this week that the league is banking on a monster TV deal next year.
“We need the ecosystem, essentially, the sports ecosystem, to step up,” Engelbert said on “NBC Nightly News with Hallie Jackson.” “And I feel really good that that’s going to happen with our next media rights negotiation, as well as our corporate partners. Our phones are ringing off the hook.”
0 seconds of 3 minutes, 18 secondsVolume 90%
WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert on the meteoric rise of women’s basketball
03:18
Clark’s draft class also brings considerable on- and off-the-court star power to the WNBA.
LSU post player Angel Reese, dubbed “Bayou Barbie,” with 3.1 million Instagram followers, was taken with the No. 7 draft pick by the Chicago Sky. Stanford forward Cameron Brink, boasting nearly 800,000 followers on the platform, was taken No. 2 by the Los Angeles Sparks. Her godmother is Sonya Curry, the mom of Golden State Warriors star Steph Curry, the NBA’s greatest 3-point shooter.
“We’re trying to double revenue, we’re trying to triple things, we’re trying to quadruple things, five-times things, and it’s working,” Engelbert said. “It’s literally working, but it’ll take a few more years.”
News
My Parents Humiliated Me at My Father’s Retirement Dinner Then My Husband Revealed Who He Really Was
Chapter 1: The Nobody My name is Diana Parker. I was thirty-two years old when my mother stood in front of 150 people at my father’s retirement party, leaned into a microphone, and made my marriage the punchline of the…
MY MOTHER TOLD ME NOT TO BRING MY SON TO EASTER AGAIN—THEN MY 13-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER STOOD UP AND SAID WHAT NONE OF THE ADULTS WOULD
Chapter 1: Don’t Bring Him It happened at a rented folding table covered in deviled egg crumbs, pastel napkins, plastic forks, and the shiny foil wrappers from Easter chocolate. The April wind moved through the dogwood trees behind my aunt’s…
MY FAMILY USED ME AS AN ATM, Until They Sold My Anniversary Gift and Learned I Was Done Paying
Chapter 1: The Good Daughter The smell of peppermint rinse and sterile latex was the permanent weather of my life. As a dentist, I spent my days working inside the smallest rooms of other people’s fear. I knew the exact…
MY HUSBAND GAVE ME AN “ALLOWANCE,” HIS MOTHER AUDITED MY GROCERY RECEIPTS—THEN THEY DROVE TO MOCK MY “TRAILER PARK” HOUSEWARMING
Chapter 1: The $3 Receipt Friday night in the Miller house always felt like a trial. Not dinner. Not family time. A trial. The kitchen table, a scuffed pine monster Linda insisted was “perfectly good,” was covered in crumpled receipts,…
MY NEWBORN WAS TURNING BLUE—MY HUSBAND LEFT FOR HAWAII AND SAID I WAS “JUST DRAMATIC”
Chapter 1: Blue Lips “Stop being so dramatic, Elena. He’s just coughing.” My mother-in-law said it like I had interrupted her breakfast, not like my three-day-old son was turning blue in my arms. Beatrice Vance stood in the middle of…
MY BILLIONAIRE FATHER DISOWNED ME AT MY OWN WEDDING—HE HAD NO IDEA THE “TRASH” HE MOCKED WAS ABOUT TO BECOME HIS BIGGEST REGRE
Chapter 1: Disowned Have you ever wondered what it feels like to have a billionaire father? Trust me, it is not the fairy tale people imagine. My name is Fiona Ashford. I was twenty-eight years old when my father stood…
End of content
No more pages to load
