The WNBA playoffs tipped off Sunday, but judging by the numbers, a lot of fans didn't notice.
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According to Sports Business Journal, the Indiana Fever's Game 1 loss to the Atlanta Dream on ABC drew 951,000 viewers. On the surface, that sounds respectable. But as OutKick points out, the context tells a very different story.
First, yes, the game went head-to-head with the NFL. The Fever tipped at 3 p.m. ET, running opposite the end of the league's early slate and overlapping with the start of the late-afternoon kickoffs.
That excuse works until you remember last year's opening playoff game. Same slot. Same network. Same NFL competition. But that game, with Caitlin Clark on the floor, pulled 1.84 million viewers — nearly double this year's total.
And here's the kicker: Nielsen changed its methodology earlier this year, adding "Big Data + Panel" measurement and expanding out-of-home viewing. Translation? Every sport's TV audience is showing inflated growth compared to past years.
If numbers are still down after that built-in boost, it's actually worse than it looks.
Yet headlines like SBJ's — "WNBA Playoffs start strong (even without Caitlin Clark)" — didn't mention any of that. Instead, they touted an opening weekend average of 544,000 viewers across three ESPN games, up 28 percent from last year. OutKick notes that when you strip out Nielsen's new math, the "growth" mostly disappears.
The real story? Star power. Clark's games last year on CBS, ABC or ESPN all cleared a million viewers. Without her on the court, Indiana couldn't hit that mark even in the postseason.
So the league can celebrate percentages if it wants. But as OutKick bluntly put it, no Clark, no crowd. Until she's back, "growth" is just spin.
