When Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese get together, sports media companies rejoice.
The Chicago Sky’s 88-87 victory Sunday over the Indiana Fever — featuring a career-high 25 points from Reese and the Sky erasing a double-digit fourth-quarter deficit — averaged 2.302 million viewers on ESPN, per the company. That makes the game the most-watched WNBA game in 23 years.
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Such records are becoming a habit when Clark and Reese meet. The June 16 game between the teams — a 91-83 Fever win Clark finishing with 23 points, nine assists and eight rebounds — averaged 2.25 million viewers on CBS, the most-watched WNBA game in 23 years.
Per Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal: The Fever-Sky game Sunday (which tipped at 4 p.m. ET) topped the 1.58 million viewers that watched the Mets-Cubs on ESPN later that night.
There were other WNBA viewership highs set last week. ION said its June 21 telecast of the Fever and Atlanta Dream averaged 1.18 million viewers, making it the most-viewed WNBA telecast on ION ever. (The previous record was 1.02 million for the June 7 Fever-Mystics game.)
The Sky and Fever matched up three times over the last three weeks. Each time, the game came down to the final minute. Alas, we have a long wait until they meet again with the WNBA taking a monthlong break for the Summer Olympics in Paris between mid-July to mid-August.
The Fever and Sky next hook up on Aug. 30. That game will air on ION at 7:30 p.m. ET.
Required reading
- Angel Reese walks the walk in Sky’s rivalry win over Caitlin Clark, Fever
- Angel Reese dominates as Sky surge back to top Fever, Caitlin Clark: ‘I’m a dog’
(Photo: Kamil Krzaczynski / USA Today)