There’s even more proof of the Caitlin Clark Effect.

ESPN announced that Game 1 between Clark’s Indiana Fever and the Connecticut Sun averaged 1.8 million viewers on ABC during the 3 p.m. ET time slot Sunday, making it the league’s most-watched playoff game since the 2000 Finals and the most-watched playoff game on ESPN platforms ever despite airing simultaneously with the NFL’s Week 3 games. That number more than doubles the 728,000 average viewership of the 2023 WNBA Finals.

While the Fever-Sun contest set a playoff viewership record, the three other WNBA playoff openers that aired on ESPN only averaged close to 425,000 viewers, less than the 470,000 average for the 2023 playoffs. 

The 1 p.m. contest between the Atlanta Dream and New York Liberty drew 410,000 viewers, the 5 p.m. matchup between the Phoenix Mercury and Minnesota Lynx averaged 403,000 viewers, and the nightcap, a 10 p.m. showdown that pitted the defending champion Las Vegas Aces against the Seattle Storm, drew 461,000 viewers.

Stiff Competition

The WNBA is no stranger to competing against the NFL as its playoffs trickle into the beginning of football season. But this year was the first time the W had its playoff opening day on a Sunday—and there seems to have been some cannibalization.

While the viewership number for the Fever-Sun game was record-breaking, that number still would not have breached the top five most-watched regular-season games of the year. That list was topped by the June 23 contest between the Fever and Angel Reese’s Chicago Sky, which aired on ESPN and drew 2.3 million viewers. MLB was the W’s biggest competition for eyeballs that Sunday.

It also helped the Sky-Fever game in June was settled by just one point. On Sunday, the Fever were blown out by the higher-seeded Sun, 93–69, and all other games were decided by double digits.

The WNBA could look at exploring a schedule change—though that may become even more difficult as the league adds more regular-season games and expansion teams. It will be worth watching whether Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s WNBA games on ESPN will haul in more viewers with the NFL out of the picture.

What If the Fever Are Eliminated? 

The WNBA should be happy with Sunday’s viewership numbers—the four games total are still up 89% compared to last year’s first-round average. But it may have a reality check coming this week. 

Clark and the Fever are not favored to make it past the first round, and because the opening round is a best-of-three series, the Fever could be eliminated Wednesday.

Despite overall growth over the past half decade, Clark is still undoubtedly the league’s biggest draw, considering Fever games top the ratings charts and drive sellouts at opposing teams’ arenas. The rest of the 2024 rookie class brought a contingent of fans to the pro level, but the likes of Angel Reese, Cameron Brink, and Kamilla Cardoso are also no longer in action.

The residual effects of Clark’s season could easily lead to a record viewership number for the playoffs, but it still will be noteworthy to see exactly how big of an interest drop-off there will be if the Fever are knocked out.

The WNBA has already locked in a media-rights deal worth $2.2 billion that lasts until 2037. It also has the opportunity to make up to $3 billion as it negotiates an extension with Scripps Sports’ Ion and CBS. However, this year’s playoff ratings could ultimately play a factor in the price reevaluation of the league’s media deal after the 2028 season.

Last summer, the Pac-12 saw 10 of its member schools bolt for other conferences, resulting in a temporary two-team league. This fall, the Pac-12 has been the aggressor and is now taking legal action to ensure its survival and supremacy over other non–Power 4 conferences.

In the latest move of this already busy week, the Pac-12 sued the Mountain West over what would be at least $55 million in exit fees for five schools that have agreed to join the former. 

Here’s a recap of the biggest moments so far:

• The Pac-12 and Mountain West were left in limbo Monday night after neither could secure the proper commitments from programs they were fighting over.
• The American Athletic Conference thwarted an attempt by the Pac-12 to steal as many as four schools—Memphis, South Florida, Tulane, and UTSA—announcing Monday that all 15 league members were committed to the AAC.
• Two weeks ago, Boise State, Colorado State, Fresno State, and San Diego State agreed to jump from the Mountain West to the Pac-12 in 2026. 
• In the Pac-12’s lawsuit filed Tuesday, the conference said Utah State has also agreed to leave the Mountain West.

Friends and Foes

The ensuing court battle will come after the breakdown of the Pac-12–Mountain West partnership that helped fill out the football schedules of Oregon State and Washington State this season and next.

Meanwhile, this latest round of realignment is impacting the future of the College Football Playoff, as five conference champions are guaranteed automatic bids in the new 12-team tournament, ensuring at least one non–Power 4 school will make it each year.

The Athletics’ final goodbye in Oakland has begun, and not surprisingly, the occasion contains a mix of feelings, including anger, sadness, and awkwardness—putting a difficult coda on one of MLB’s thorniest business issues. 

The A’s start a three-game home series against the Rangers on Tuesday, the team’s final games at the Oakland Coliseum after a 57-season stay there. The franchise is set to relocate this offseason for a three-year interim stay in Sacramento before ultimately moving to Las Vegas in 2028, with both of those shifts still grappling with their own logistical complications. 

Back in Oakland, Coliseum and team officials are bracing for a potentially volatile week. Security has been increased for the three games, and players and coaches have been given a series of additional guidelines, including instructions to not loiter on the field after the final game Thursday. 

Though the A’s are by far the worst-attended team in the league, averaging fewer than 10,400 fans per game, the last contest Thursday has long been a sellout, and the club has refused fan overtures to open up “Mount Davis”—the Coliseum’s large outfield seating section built in the 1990s for the NFL’s Raiders—for additional capacity. 

Rebukes for the Owner

A’s owner John Fisher released a lengthy open letter to fans Monday, apologizing for failing to complete a stadium deal that would allow the team to stay in Oakland. In the missive, Fisher pointed to constraints from a “binding agreement to find a new home by 2024,” which helped drive the A’s to Las Vegas. 

That agreement, part of MLB’s five-year labor deal with the MLB Players Association, indeed includes language to disqualify the A’s from the league’s revenue-sharing plan if a stadium deal wasn’t completed by Jan. 15, 2024. The A’s beat that date with last year’s deal with Nevada officials and subsequent MLB approval to move to Las Vegas. But that supposed urgency is fundamentally based around money, something many A’s fans have struggled to reconcile given Fisher’s estimated $3 billion net worth. 

Furthermore, industry sources tell Front Office Sports the inclusion of the revenue-sharing eligibility for the A’s in the collective bargaining agreement with the players was driven much more by team owners and the league than it was by the union. 

“With all due respect, which is more than you likely deserve, save it,” former A’s pitcher Trevor May tweeted regarding the Fisher letter. “Be an adult. Get in front of a camera and say it with your chest. Releasing a letter, clearly written by someone else, and including a bunch of names you DEFINITELY do not know, is just disrespectful to those that love the team. … Either stand up with pride or keep hiding. Pick one, we’re tired.”

Even Green Day front-man Billie Joe Armstrong, who was born in Oakland and grew up in nearby Rodeo, Calif., blasted Fisher during a recent concert at San Francisco’s Oracle Park. 

“We don’t take no s*** from people like John f***ing Fisher, who sold out the Oakland A’s to Las f***ing Vegas,” Armstrong said. “I f***ing hate Las Vegas. It’s the worst s***hole in America.”