Caitlin Clark Helped Set One More Record on the Final Night of the Regular Season

The Fever guard concluded a rookie year to remember.
The lights on Caitlin Clark continue to shine brightly.
The lights on Caitlin Clark continue to shine brightly. / Grace Hollars/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The Washington Mystics beat the Indiana Fever on Thursday night, 92–91. Guard Caitlin Clark played limited minutes for the Fever as they had already clinched the No. 6 seed in the WNBA playoffs, but she played nonetheless, explaining last week how important it was for her to show up for the fans. And boy, were there a lot of them.

20,711 in fact.

The largest crowd in WNBA history.

Clark made an immediate impact and the WNBA set a number of records this year thanks to her immense popularity. She was at Iowa in April and by June the league was seeing the highest attendance in a quarter-century and setting ratings records. It continued through the entire season with ESPN seeing 170% ratings increases.

If you're into these kinds of things, it will be really interesting to see how the Fever and the rest of the teams do in the ratings this weekend with the playoffs starting against a quadruple-header on an NFL Sunday. While that may hurt, if Indiana can force a winner-take-all Game 3 at home next Friday, who knows how high this can go?


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Stephen Douglas
STEPHEN DOUGLAS

Stephen Douglas is a Senior Writer on the Breaking & Trending News Team at Sports Illustrated. He has been in journalism and media since 2008, and now casts a wide net with coverage across all sports. Stephen spent more than a decade with The Big Lead and has previously written for Uproxx and The Sporting News. He has three children, two degrees and one now unverified Twitter account.