It has been a month now that Caitlyn has been out and we still don’t know when she will be returning to the court, if she will be returning to the court this season. The WNBA has a problem and that problem is Caitlyn Clark not playing in WNBA games. Now, what all does this affect? The ratings are plummeting, guys.
 
There’s a rate there’s ratings for a couple of these games that are eyepoppingly bad. The WNBA just got a huge wakeup call. It’s about life without Caitlyn Clark. Ratings are dropping fast. One groin injury later and that historic growth slogan feels pretty flimsy now. WNBA owners are getting restless. No, actually they’re furious. They’re looking at these TV numbers.
 
Is their big dream really this fragile? The huge question remains, can this league survive without its one true ratings magnet? Think about it. When Clark’s out, are you really changing your weekend plans to watch the so-called other stars? What are you going to do about it, Kathy? If and when Caitlyn Clark returns, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to allow her to come back and get mauled? Are you going to allow her to come back and continue to get fouled? Because if we see what’s going on here with the ratings, the owners have to
 
see. And the owners are thinking themselves, the bubble might be bursting. This bubble might be bursting. And Kaylin Clark being out for over a month is the catalyst to the burst. Look, here’s the cold truth. The league had one sure way to get ratings this season. It was Caitlyn Clark versus Angel Ree. That was the whole marketing plan.

Chicago Sky against the Indiana Fever. You didn’t need a massive team brainstorming. You didn’t need flashy ads. Just put the two biggest names on the same court a few times. Boom. Instant money machine. There was one matchup that this league can consistently rely on to produce massive viewership numbers. One matchup.
 
The Chicago Sky vers Indiana Fever. Caitlyn Clark, Angel Ree, the league’s two most noticeable names on the court at the same time. In fact, they relied so heavily on this matchup, they put these two teams against each other five times this season. But here’s the thing. If you don’t protect your stars, they won’t stick around.
 
Clark’s been out for over a month now. It’s a groin injury. That means real recovery, not just taping it up and hoping, which is what the WNBA seems to think is okay. Reese has also been out for a week and a half. So, when this past Saturday rolled around, that big golden matchup didn’t have either of its stars on the floor.
 
The ratings just collapsed. We’re talking the lowest numbers these two teams have seen since Clark first stepped into the league. It wasn’t just a slight dip, it was rock bottom. It couldn’t even match last year’s average numbers. It was bad. bad for Caitlyn Clark. She come out and said on Sue Bird’s podcast that she’s feeling the pressure of not playing in these games and that Fever Sky viewership fell off the map.
 
All right, a massive fall off from earlier in the year. No Caitlin Clark, no Angel Reese. Angel Reese’s uh back injury question mark. Uh nobody’s exactly sure what the hell’s going on there. Now the numbers don’t lie and they paint an ugly picture. That first meeting this year with both Clark and Ree playing. It was massive.
 
We saw 2.7 million average viewers on ABC. It peaked at 3.1 million. That’s way higher than last year’s average. It wasn’t just the star power either. That game had everything. Clark’s foul drama, her triple double, Chicago getting completely demolished, and that whole league investigation that got everyone talking.
 
Essentially, Angel Reese gets the ball. Caitlyn Clark goes over, does a hard foul, commits a hard foul on Angel Reese. She falls to the ground. After that, Angel Reese gets up. She’s feeling super spicy. She’s charging at Caitlyn Clark. Caitlyn Clark is walking away. Aaliyah Boston steps in and kind of stops Angel Reese.
 
Courtney Vanderloo also steps in. And the second meeting stayed strong even with Clark out. It was prime time on CBS. It pulled in almost 2 million viewers. That was still one of the most watched WNBA regular season games in over 20 years. But the third meeting, that’s when the slide started from 2.7 million down to 1.9 million.
 
Then it crashed to 1.5 million. That’s over a million people saying, “Nah, I’m good.” They just didn’t come back for round three. That 1.5 million number was the lowest Fever Sky viewership since last year. Then came Saturday’s disaster. Same prime time slot, same network, same matchup.
 
But without Clark, they didn’t even hit 1.4 million. It was more like 1.3 million. That means over half a million viewers just flat out left. This marquee matchup has lost 1.4 million viewers in just a few months. In TV terms, that’s not a slump. That’s catastrophic. Networks panic over drops. Half that size. Advertisers panic. And you can bet the league office is panicking, too, even if they won’t say it.
Several more weeks pretty much puts Caitlyn Clark to coming back at the very end of the regular season. If you look at the Indiana Fevers schedule right now, they only have 12 games left and there is exactly four weeks left in the regular season. And the craziest thing about this last groin injury with Caitlyn Clark is how it’s been covered.
The day after she had the groin injury, she was listed as dayto-day. And then a couple weeks after that, then she was listed to being out indefinitely. The thing is, without Clark, national interest in the fever in the WNBA just plummets. Fans aren’t tuning in for just any playbook.
They’re not showing up for slow, sloppy basketball, and they definitely aren’t eager to watch the mess that is WNBA officiating. There any chance that the WNBA that Kathy Anglebert saw some of the ratings that I’m about to show you now and said, “Hey, Indiana Fever, can you do us a favor? Can you do us a solid? Can you just tease a Kayn Clark return? Kind of boost these up a little bit.
 
Can you just dangle a Caitlin Clark return in front of the fans faces? Try to boost these ratings up a little bit. So, what’s the league’s play? So, desperation mode has kicked in. You start hearing whispers. Hey, Fever. Maybe tease a Caitlyn Clark return just to bump those numbers. Dangle the possibility without actually delivering.
 
It’s straight out of the PR survival manual. Keep the audience hooked, even if it’s smoke and mirrors. But here’s the catch. Clark’s injury isn’t something you rush. Not unless you’re okay with a reinjury or a long-term problem. And maybe, just maybe, if the league had done its job
But no, instead, the refs treat her like she’s just some random player. Guys, I got to tell you, in two of these other games I’m going to show you, it is it is bad back in WNBA territory of where they were like three years ago or four years ago. I saw these ratings and was like, you got to be joking. Yeah.
 
And this doesn’t just mess up fever games. Look around the league. A Sun versus Sky game pulled in less than 200,000 viewers. Dream versus Mercury, even less. If the WNBA’s growth was as explosive as they claim, those games would easily clear 400K, maybe even 500K. But without the Caitlyn Clark boost, they can’t even get close to 200K. That’s what Clark is.
 
She’s an economic engine for the entire league. She plays, numbers go up. she sits. Numbers crash and the league can’t claim they didn’t see this coming. The red flags were there from day one. Their biggest ratings asset is taking harder hits than an NFL wide receiver. She’s getting fewer whistles than a spam caller.
 
No calls for landing space violations. No calls for arm grabs on drives. No calls for blatant hacks at the rim. Do you think if Clark got the same officiating other stars get in college, she’d still be sidelined? The Fever would probably be a top three seed and we wouldn’t be talking about ratings falling off a cliff in August. If you fail to protect your stars, Kayn Clark, if you fail to protect your stars, sometimes they might not be around all the time.
 
Sometimes they might get nicked up. Sometimes they might get dinged up. And sometimes they might get a soft tissue injury that takes weeks, if not months, to correctly heal. And that’s the predicament the WNBA now finds themselves in. Kaylin Clark has been out a month and one day. Instead, the bubble is losing air fast. Owners are watching those charts.
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They’re feeling the pressure. You don’t need a fancy analytics team to see it. We went from 3.1 million highs to 1.3 million lows. Games on cable barely break 200K. The slide is steep and ugly. All because the one player the league should be protecting like gold isn’t playing. And here’s the really scary part.
 
This isn’t just about right now. Every week Clark sits, casual fans start to drift away. They find something else to watch. Once that habit is broken, good luck getting it back, especially when the replacement product is a lineup of players most casual viewers couldn’t even name. The WNBA’s marketing plan is Clark and other people.
 
And news flash, that other people part isn’t selling. We have officially regressed. We have went way backwards. which is slightly above the average national TV viewership for Fever Games this year, but it also is the least watched of the eight Chicago and Indiana games since 2024. Look at this, folks. Networks don’t want to hear.
 
Just wait until she’s healthy. ESPN, CBS, ABC, they pay for consistent numbers. If they see viewership disappear every time Clark isn’t playing, they’re going to question how many games they commit to next year. If you’re a network executive, why invest in a product that just collapses when one player is out? That’s not sustainable, and it definitely doesn’t give the league any power in the next TV deal.
 
Just yesterday, she was listed as a game time decision for today’s game against the Dallas Wings. And then after practice yesterday, coach Stephanie White basically came out and said like, “No, Caitlyn Clark hasn’t even been practicing.” So, they changed it from a game time decision to her being out. This has been all over the place.
 
The owners aren’t blind to what’s happening. And the league certainly isn’t either. But instead of fixing the real issue, actually protecting the one player who’s holding up the whole operation, they’re pulling the oldest trick in the sports PR book, the fake game time decision tease. It’s like dangling a piece of steak in front of a hungry dog. Knowing the plate is empty.
 
Fans have seen this before. It works once, maybe twice. Then the crowd catches on. They decide they aren’t falling for it again. Nothing hurts credibility and ratings faster than making people feel like you’ve just strung them along for attention. And I get it to a certain extent. The fans, the media does not need to know every little thing that’s going on with Caitlyn Clark’s injuries, especially a star player like that.
 
We will never know all the information, nor should we know all the information. And that’s actually good for Caitlyn. It protects her for when she does come back on the court. She can’t be targeted. Teams can’t use a certain injury or ailment against her if people don’t really know what is going on.
 
But the the reporting of her timeline in general, there has been no rhyme or reason to what has been shared about it. Here’s the ugly truth for the WNBA this season. They didn’t just market around Caitlyn Clark. They made her the entire hook. Every promo, every prime time slot, every highlight package, every merch drop. She was the headline.
 
Without her, you’re left with teams that barely pull the same audience as a local high school boy state championship game. Seriously, some of those games get over a quarter million views. Meanwhile, the league has been talking about historic growth all year. Record-breaking ratings, sellout, merch flying off shelves.
 
But take Clark out of the equation. That growth deflates faster than a cheap beach ball. This isn’t leaguewide growth. It’s Clark growth. Just like the ‘9s weren’t a magic boom for all of basketball. That was the Michael Jordan effect. Big difference. WNBA has a problem because it seems with Kayen Clark out, not only are the Indiana Fever games losing their steam, not only is the marquee matchup against the Chicago Sky losing its steam, that’s the marquee matchup this league has to offer casual fans.
 
You go up to anybody in the streets, name two WNBA players. One is always going to be Caitlin Clark and the second is usually going to be Angel Ree. Maybe you’ll get a Sabrina. Maybe, but usually it’s going to be those two. Maybe you’ll get a page. Maybe, but usually it’s going to be those two. 85% of the time, those are the two names you’re going to get.
 
Let’s talk about the part nobody in the WNBA front office wants to admit. The long-term fallout. If Clark is sidelined for another two weeks, that’s two more prime time games that flop. Two more weeks of casual fans finding new things to watch. two more weeks of people flipping to baseball or the NFL preseason or literally anything else.
 
Sure, some will come back when she returns, but a big chunk of that audience will be gone forever. Once the sports league loses casual viewers, it’s like trying to get toothpaste back in the tube. Then we have the playoffs coming soon. If Clark’s return doesn’t immediately push ratings back to those two or three million highs we saw in May, what’s the excuse going to be? You can’t keep saying just wait.
 
momentum is coming. The whole year has been built around her. The postseason should be the biggest payoff. If it’s not, the entire growth story just falls apart. Kathy Angleberg, this is what happens when you don’t protect your superstar. This is what happens when you don’t protect your cash cow.
 
This is what happens when you allow gambling to run rampant in your league. I just had to throw that in there because that’s what’s that’s what’s taking place. This is what happens when you have referees call fouls one way for one individual and not the other way for the other individual. And let’s stop pretending this injury came out of nowhere.
 
The targeting has been relentless. The officiating it’s a joke. Clark has been hacked, grabbed, shoved, taken out in midair all season and barely a whistle in sight. Landing space violations ignored. Arms pulled on drives ignored. Straight up body checks at the rim, waved off like nothing happened. You don’t limp for weeks from a harmless tap.
 
This groin injury is a direct result of all that damage. The refs just let it happen. If she’d been officiated like the star she is from day one, she’d be healthy right now. The fever would be heading for a top seed and the league office would be on every camera talking about record ratings. Instead, they’re hiding from the fact the league is bleeding viewers every week.
 
and Angel Ree being out doesn’t help either. The league struck gold with that Clark versus Ree rivalry. But they let both players get chewed up by the physical grind. Now that so-called marquee matchup is just another average team playing a bad one without either of their stars, they’re pulling TV numbers so low network execs are checking golf scores instead of game scores.
 
Every team is fighting for a spot in the playoffs. Caitlyn Clark should not be thrown back into any mix if she doesn’t have significant practices under her belt before she goes into game speed. You can try to simulate game speed as much as you want in practice. You will never be able to. Game speed is game speed.
 
There’s also a lot more adrenaline, all of these different things pumping when you’re playing in front of a soldout crowd that the Indiana Fever do every single night. If I’m their coach, she needs to practice for at minimum a week. At the minimum, she needs to be doing everything in practice for at least a week before you throw her back in the mix.
 
The league has to do something. They either fix the officiating and protect their stars, or they admit that their entire business depends on whether Caitlyn Clark is on the court. We already know what happens when Caitlyn Clark gets back out on the court. Teams play defense on her differently.
 
They play extra physical with her. There’s all of these different factors that come into play. That’s why I’m sort of leaning to the point of maybe Caitlyn should be out for the rest of the season. Maybe this season is just done for her. Maybe it doesn’t make sense for her to come back into the mix if the Fever aren’t contenders.
 
Are the Fever contenders at this point? I’m just not I’m just not so sure. Do you risk another injury that can again compound and compound and turn into something else down the line? Here’s the truth the PR team won’t say out loud. What they call historic growth is actually a rickety house of cards. The second clark isn’t on the floor.
 
The ratings fall like a rock. That’s not growth. That’s dependency. When a business relies completely on one thing, it’s only one bad month away from full-on panic mode. Owners see it. Networks see it. Advertisers see it. You don’t need a fancy analytics department to understand this. If losing one player can sink your biggest matchup by over a million viewers, you’ve got a huge problem. It’s Caitlyn Clark or Bust.
 
And right now, without her, it’s Bust. One injury has exposed the WNBA’s entire fragile structure. Unless they start protecting their investment, networks and fans will move on and they’ll move faster than the league can say historic growth.