When Caitlin Clark and the rest of the 2024 WNBA rookie class came onto the scene — the class that catapulted the league into the American sports spotlight, featuring the already-viral Clark and her college rival-turned-pro opponent Angel Reese — the WNBA had a modest social media presence, at best.
In late 2023, the league recorded 373 million total official video views across all of its social media accounts. By comparison, the NBA had 32 billion views for its season.
Advertisement
Then came 2024, what Dr. Ryan Brewer calls “the quantum leap,” a 436% jump in WNBA views in one season, “led by real-time viral loops of the incoming rookie class and the highlight reels of Clark,” says Brewer, division head and associate professor of finance at Indiana University Columbus.
By the time Clark had finished her rookie season, playing for the Indiana Fever, the WNBA’s social media views had exploded to nearly 2 billion, according to Brewer’s study, “The Structural Transformation of WNBA Media & Consumer Economics in the pre- and post-Caitlin Clark Era.”
“So, 1.96 billion views? That’s telling. People are fascinated by Clark,” Brewer says. “It’s kind of what I would say is a Taylor Swift effect. Is Taylor Swift really that much better than Miley Cyrus or Dua Lipa?
“So, Taylor Swift has done something that has captivated people, and it’s hard to really get into what is differentiating Caitlin Clark from the rest of the WNBA, because there are a lot of other great players in the WNBA.”
Brewer, a renowned valuation guru in the field of finance, is an expert on estimating something or someone’s worth. After Clark’s 2024 season ended, IndyStar asked Brewer to put a price tag on the rookie phenom, what she had meant financially to the WNBA, her city and the country.
Advertisement
“The numbers are so staggering,” Brewer told IndyStar at the time. “They don’t even seem real.”
By Brewer’s calculation, Clark was responsible for 26.5% of the WNBA’s leaguewide activity for the 2024 season, including attendance, merchandise sales and television. One of every six tickets sold at a WNBA arena were attributed to Clark.
Total TV viewership due to Clark was up 300%, and 45% of total broadcast value came from Fever games. The league’s merchandise sales catapulted 500%, with Clark ranking No. 1 followed by Reese.
The Fever’s regular-season game attendance averaged more than 17,000 fans, the first time a WNBA team had drawn more than 300,000 fans in a season. Clark’s regular-season games were watched by 1.2 million viewers on average, which was 199% more than non-Clark WNBA games.
Advertisement
As Clark finished up her third season with the Fever, ultimately losing 94-83 to the Aces in Game 3 of the first round of the playoffs, IndyStar asked Brewer again to take a look at Clark’s impact on the league.
And again, Brewer was astounded.
‘Caitlin Clark generates 800% more viral views’
“I’m looking at this one number,” Brewer said, when asked what surprised him most in his latest research. During the 2026 season, Clark and the Fever generated more social media views than the rest of the WNBA combined.
While a Fever game featuring Clark saw between 20 million to 45 million viral views across TikTok, X and Instagram — driven by rapid highlight clips of Clark’s logo three-pointers and assists — a WNBA game without Clark garnered 3 million to 5 million viral views, Brewer’s research found.
Advertisement
“Caitlin Clark generates 800% more viral views across all digital media modalities when her plays and highlights are featured,” Brewer says. “This is a worldwide number, and it stood out.”
But, of course, Brewer says, this isn’t all about Clark.
“If you look at the number of views for all of the teams, for all of the players, the rate of growth has increased substantially since Clark arrived. Basketball isn’t one person. Basketball is a team sport,” Brewer says. “So, people are interested in her moves, her passes, the way she’s able to operate an offense, but people are noticing other players in the league as well.”
Case in point. Clark doesn’t top the list of WNBA social media influencers when it comes to followers on Instagram. The Atlanta Dream’s Angel Reese is No. 1 with 5.2 million followers; Fever teammate Sophie Cunningham is second with 4.2 million; and Clark lands No. 3 with 4.1 million.
Advertisement
But when it comes to merchandise sales in the WNBA, Clark reigns supreme, according to Indianapolis-based BaMsports, which gathers data, research and analysis for sponsors.
As of May, Clark’s jersey was the second most popular basketball item on Fanatics behind only Steph Curry. The three top WNBA jerseys on Fanatics were Fever custom jerseys, Clark and Cunningham. On the Fever online store, 11 of the top 24 items were Clark’s, two were Cunningham’s and the other 11 items were varied.
And with viral merchandise and viral views, “so goes in person attendance in the WNBA,” Brewer says. “Teams across the league have seen spikes in attendance since Clark arrived.”
Fever attendance boom
In the years leading up to Clark’s arrival, the Fever drew less than the WNBA average attendance six seasons straight, from 2017 to 2023. In 2022, the Fever ranked last in WNBA attendance.
Advertisement
In 2024, the Fever saw an average of 17,035 fans in attendance at 20 home games. That number was 16,560 in 2025 and 16,379 in 20 games during the 2026 season. The Fever now rank third in WNBA average attendance.
The arrival of the 2024 draft class featuring Clark and Reese “structurally shifted the league’s economic floor, triggering an immediate 48.3% single-year surge in league-wide attendance,” Brewer says.
And with attendance comes television viewership.
“Traditional television networks have rewritten their legacy broadcast schedules to prioritize Indiana Fever matchups,” Brewer says. “In 2026, the Fever achieved a historic media milestone: all 44 regular season games were picked up for national broadcast distribution across major carriage networks.”
Advertisement
And when Clark was playing, the audience scaled exponentially. Fever games regularly average between 2 million and 2.7 million viewers.
On August 23, 2026, the Fever’s 113-90 victory over the Chicago Sky delivered a massive 3.31 million viewers, securing its position as the most-watched WNBA regular-season game on record since 1997.
The Fever also set single-network franchise viewership records across six distinct outlets in 2026: CBS, NBC, ESPN, Prime Video, USA Network and Ion.
Jun 20, 2026; Atlanta, Georgia, USA; Atlanta Dream forward Angel Reese (5) and rapper Latto interact after a victory against the Indiana Fever at State Farm Arena. Mandatory Credit: Jordan Godfree-Imagn Images
Who are the top 10 WNBA Instagram influencers by followers?
Angel Reese: 5.2 million, Atlanta Dream
Sophie Cunningham: 4.2 million, Indiana Fever
Advertisement
Caitlin Clark: 4.1 million, Indiana Fever
Paige Bueckers: 3.1 million, Dallas Wings
A’ja Wilson: 1.5 million, Las Vegas Aces
Sabrina Ionescu 1.4 million, New York Liberty
Cameron Brink: 1.3 million, Los Angeles Sparks
Hailey Van Lith: 1.2 million, Connecticut Sun
Kelsey Plum: 1.2 million, Phoenix Mercury
Jewell Loyd: 1.1 million, Las Vegas Aces
Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on X: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via email: dbenbow@indystar.com.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Caitlin Clark’s billion-view social media impact on WNBA: ‘Wow, it’s a Taylor Swift effect’
