WNBA ratings continued to trend upward by setting another benchmark over the weekend. Caitlin Clark and Kelsey Mitchell led the Indiana Fever to an emphatic 113-90 win over the Chicago Sky on Sunday Night Basketball. NBC Sports announced Wednesday that the primetime matchup was the most-watched WNBA regular-season game since the league's inaugural 1997 season.
Per a company release, 3.31 million average viewers watched the Fever-Sky game on NBC or Peacock. It's the third-most-watched game in WNBA history, trailing only 1997 opening-weekend contests between the New York Liberty and Los Angeles Sparks (5.04 million) and Charlotte Sting and Phoenix Mercury (3.59 million). Viewers got a good show on Sunday night.
Clark delivered 37 points and 10 assists, giving the star guard more career games with at least 30 points and 10 dimes (five) than the rest of the WNBA combined (four). The 24-year-old bolstered her MVP candidacy by draining a career-high eight 3-pointers at Wintrust Arena. Clark had plenty of help from her All-Star backcourt mate.
Mitchell upped her scoring average to 24.8 points per game, second to A'ja Wilson, by tallying 30 points. Chicago entered halftime with a one-point lead, but Indiana outscored its opponent 30-13 in the fourth quarter. Ten different Sky players scored, led by 16 points from veteran Natasha Cloud.
The victory snapped a two-game losing streak for the Fever, who had previously won five straight. Indiana improved to 25-14 with a league-high 96.6 points per game and can climb up to as high as the No. 2 seed over the regular season's final five games. Meanwhile, the Sky are eliminated from playoff contention at 15-24.
NBC will hope to draw another large audience when broadcasting its final regular-season game between the New York Liberty and Atlanta Dream on Monday, Sept. 21.
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