The first place in history! This top scorer can only be suppressed by Kuzan s joint efforts

When the NBA entered the middle and late stages of the playoffs, another area of ​​the American basketball world, the WNBA, also kicked off the curtain for the new season.

For a long time, the WNBA has been regarded as just a boring choice for hardcore basketball fans in the NBA offseason. Many basketball enthusiasts even don’t care about women’s basketball at all. In the public’s impression, the WNBA is almost equivalent to a box office poison.

However, the stunning debut of the women's basketball superstar Caitlin Clark completely reversed this stereotype.

According to ESPN's recent ratings data, in a WNBA preseason game on May 4, the Indiana Fanatics, led by 2024 WNBA No. 1 pick Caitlyn Clark, faced the Brazilian national team. This game attracted a lot of attention and received an average viewership of up to 1.3 million, breaking the WNBA historical preseason ratings record.

You can see how popular this game is from the on-site entrance rate. The competition was held at the neutral venue of the University of Iowa, which is Clark's alma mater. The average on-court ticket price is as high as $440 per ticket, which is even higher than the NBA playoff ticket level. Of course, the size of the university arena is slightly smaller than that of the NBA venues. A more classic scene after the game was that the female athletes of the Brazilian team asked her for autographs, and the entire stadium was surrounded and airtight.

What does the average viewership of 1.3 million she brings mean? This number not only set a historical record in the WNBA preseason, but also surpassed the average viewing results of all preseasons in the US basketball world this year. That's right, even the NBA's average preseason ratings are left behind.

In fact, since the NBA preseason started broadcasting nationwide, there have been only two games with a higher rating than this WNBA preseason. One of them was the 2017 Cleveland Cavaliers vs. Bulls, with an average viewership of 1.4 million; the other was the 2018 Lakers and Warriors, with an average viewership of 2 million.

Both games are related to LeBron. The reason why the subsequent game attracted a lot of audiences was that this was LeBron's first meeting with his old rival Warriors after joining the Lakers.

In other words, only by sending the king-bombing combination of James and Curry can we hope to defeat the current Clark in terms of ratings.

Caitlyn Clark is bringing earth-shaking changes to the WNBA. Once upon a time, the WNBA was only attached to the NBA's affiliated league; now, under the guidance of Clark, it is transforming into a highly commercially valuable league. In fact, since Clark joined last year, the overall WNBA ratings have increased significantly by 140%. This year, the WNBA has been fully fired. In 41 of the 44 regular season games of the Fanatics, the number of live broadcasts across the United States has reached almost 100%.

In fact, we are witnessing the growth process of a brand new leading women's basketball team. If there is the old saying in the basketball world that "a player who changes the ecology will be born every 20 years", then Caitlyn Clark is undoubtedly a well-deserved leader in the 21st 20s.