Caitlin Clark’s skill helped skyrocket ticket sales during the NCAA finals this year, and already, her stardom is affecting WNBA ticket prices.
Clark, the standout guard for the Iowa Hawkeyes, has played a pivotal role in the surge of interest in women’s basketball — selling-out the Big Ten Women’s Tournament in a historic first. Following a record season, which included surpassing Pete Maravich to become the all-time leading scorer in Division I basketball, Clark decided to forgo a fifth college season to enter the WNBA draft.
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The draft is just a week away, and Clark is expected to be selected first overall by the Indiana Fever. Already, ticket prices for Indiana’s games are already on the rise. Tickets to see the Wings during the 2024 season, for example, are averaging as little as $25 for a match against Chicago Sky on the secondary ticketing site Ticket Club. However, when the Wings play Indiana, that price skyrockets to $180.
This is a similar story for other teams; tickets for the Connecticut Sun vs. Washington Mystics match has seats for around $25, however, the Sun vs. Indiana tickets are going for $80. The price increase is evident even for pricier matches; a ticket to the Phoenix Mercury vs. Atlanta Dream game is $70, though that number jumps when Atlanta takes on Indiana for a whopping $163.
Clark isn’t just a skilled player; she’s also helped boost viewership, and as she heads to the WNBA, everyone wants to see her live and in-action. The LSU-Iowa game brought-in 12 million viewers on ESPN last weekend, along with 14.2 million viewers for the UConn-Iowa match — marking the most viewers for any basketball game on ESPN, including college, pro, men, and women. At one point, 17 million people were viewing the match, which ESPN said was the second-best viewership count in history for a non-football game.
Sunday night, the South Carolina Gamecocks defeated Iowa 87-75. Even though Clark’s team did not take home the championship win, Clark said this year’s game was “probably more special than last year.” Throughout the game, she scored 30 points, boosting her career total to 3,951 — achieving more points than any man or woman in major college basketball history.
