Caitlin Clark with WNBA Commissioner Cathy EngelbertSarah Stier/Getty Images
By Katie Campione
Source: deadline.com, April 2024

The college basketball season may be over, but Caitlin Clark helped lead ESPN to one more audience record before going pro.

The Iowa Hawkeyes superstar was the No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft on Monday, and 2.45M viewers tuned in to ESPN to watch her be selected by the Indiana Fever, according to Nielsen.

This is a record-smashing audience for the WNBA draft, marking the first time that the event has ever tallied over a million viewers. The former record holder was the 2004 draft, which this year’s beat by 304%.

Viewership peaked at just over 3M with just over 1M of them women. That’s a 374% increase in female viewership year over year.

This certainly won’t be a surprise to anyone who has been paying attention to the record-setting season that women’s college basketball had. For the first time ever, the NCAA Women’s College Basketball Championship topped the men’s final, nearing 19M viewers.

It’ll be interesting to see how the interest in the NCAA Women’s Tournament might translate to the WNBA in the future.