Culture
Is Caitlin Clark's star power strong enough to spike WNBA fandom?
The Athletic has live coverage of the 2024 WNBA draft.
Just eight days after playing for an NCAA national championship, Caitlin Clark is poised to become the No. 1 pick in the WNBA Draft and burst into the professional ranks with the star power to jolt the league at a pivotal moment in its trajectory.
Throngs of fans are expected to tune in for Monday night’s national broadcast when the Iowa star is all but certain to be selected by the Indiana Fever. From the moment her name is called and Clark takes center stage, she will become the WNBA’s most anticipated rookie in years. A popularity boost similar to the effect she had in women’s college basketball could follow her with every logo 3-pointer she makes and each pin-point pass she throws.
At Iowa, Clark’s impact was even greater than her resumé, which itself was outstanding with three conference tournament titles, two national championship appearances, and dozens of broken records, including the NCAA Division I all-time scoring mark. When Clark played, every game was appointment-viewing. Arenas sold out and television ratings records shattered.
The WNBA has already been on an ascent over the last few seasons with increases in nationally broadcast games, greater attendance and more media coverage. But Clark, who even South Carolina coach Dawn Staley described as “one of the GOATs of our game” after beating Iowa in the championship, is expected to catalyze a surge in fandom, television viewership, attendance and media coverage like no player before. Clark likely will have to continue to perform well and move the Fever out of their bottom-dweller status (Indiana hasn’t made the postseason since 2016) to further juice the WNBA economy. But the early returns indicate she will have an outsized impact.
“I would trade my whole team for her,” said one general manager, granted anonymity by The Athletic to speak freely about Clark. “Partly because our owner would do it to sell tickets. But on top of that, that’s such a great piece to start to build around. She’s (like Diana) Taurasi coming out, and look what Taurasi’s done.”
Clark will debut in the WNBA at just the right time. The league, entering its 28th season, is on the cusp of a two-year window that could determine its long-term health and future. It announced the addition of a 13th team last fall and intends to expand to 16 teams, according to sources with knowledge of the league’s plans. Charlotte, Toronto and Denver are among the front-runners, and stakeholders from Nashville, Philadelphia, Portland and South Florida have expressed interest to the league about adding a team.
A new media rights deal looms after the 2025 season. Negotiations on a new collective bargaining agreement are likely coming soon, too, and with it, talks about changes to league travel, roster size and salaries — including how players and the league split revenue. If the league’s economics improve — which Clark could impact by her potentially significant draw for sponsors — players could benefit from that, too, in the form of playoff bonuses and more travel accommodations.
The success of the 2024 draft class, led by Clark but also including college stars like Cameron Brink, Kamilla Cardoso and Angel Reese, will help shape the WNBA for years to come. Partnerships and media deals remain the league’s largest sources of revenue, and Clark has been a magnet for sponsors and a driver of record ratings in recent seasons.
That, coupled with her on-court prowess, is why obtaining the No. 1 pick in this year’s draft was so consequential.
“Caitlin is going to be Caitlin Clark,” said Chicago Sky head coach Teresa Weatherspoon, who also played in the WNBA and coached in the NBA. “She is an incredible talent, going to do amazing things in the WNBA. And it does an incredible thing for us, for the WNBA because of the fan base that follows along with her.”
The frenzy surrounding Clark in college is already carrying over to the WNBA. Thirty-six Fever games — 90 percent of its schedule — will be on national television this upcoming season, one more than the back-to-back champion Las Vegas Aces. According to ticket marketplace Vivid Seats, as of Wednesday, the average sold price for Indiana Fever tickets increased 190 percent since last season. The average list price on Vivid Seats for Indiana’s season-opener against the Connecticut Sun was up 91 percent since Clark declared for the WNBA Draft in late February.
Even before Clark officially joins the Fever, opposing franchises have scheduled around her expected presence. The Aces moved their July 2 home game against Indiana from their usual stadium into the larger T-Mobile Arena, which can accommodate 6,000 more people. The Minnesota Lynx are holding Maya Moore’s jersey retirement on the same night they host the Fever at the end of August. The Phoenix Mercury are already promoting their first contest against Indiana as The GOAT (Taurasi) vs. The Rook (Clark).
According to StubHub, sales for the Indiana Fever are up more than 13 times as of Thursday compared to this same time last year. “Caitlin Clark is already having a huge impact on the WNBA,” StubHub spokesperson Adam Budelli said in a statement.
This is nothing new to Clark, who sold out all but two games as a senior and drew 55,000 fans for an exhibition game inside Iowa’s football stadium. Clark doesn’t just get fans to spend money on tickets, though, she also pulls in sponsors. She has a growing list of endorsements from blue chip companies — Gatorade and State Farm, for instance — and is on the cusp of a new sneaker deal. Multiple sources with knowledge of the sneaker industry said Clark is set to sign a deal for more than $1 million annually, which would be one of the richest among WNBA players.
The WNBA, which relies on its partnerships as a large source of revenue, could see an influx of new companies interested in working with the league to be tied to Clark, and the Fever could see a boom. Clark’s effect on television ratings could have even more significant implications for the future of the WNBA. Ratings for the WNBA increased last season. The finals averaged 728,000 viewers across ABC and ESPN — the highest in 20 years. Yet Clark’s presence is likely to make the league more bullish as it enters those discussions.
South Carolina’s win over Iowa in the title game was seen on ABC by 18.9 million viewers, with a peak audience of 24.1 million — a 90 percent increase from the 2023 title game and a 289 percent increase from 2022. ESPN said it was the most-watched non-football or Olympics sporting event (men’s or women’s, college or pro) since 2019. The game broke viewership records that were just set days before in the national semifinal and Iowa’s Elite Eight matchup against LSU. All told, women’s college basketball viewership records were shattered across seven different networks in 2023-24, with Iowa taking part in each game.
Highest rated WCB games
| Teams | Event | Ratings | TV |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Iowa vs. South Carolina |
2024 championship |
18.9 M |
ABC |
|
Iowa vs. UConn |
2024 national semifinals |
14.4 M |
ESPN |
|
Iowa vs. LSU |
2024 regional championship |
12.3 M |
ESPN |
|
Iowa vs. LSU |
2023 national championship |
9.9 M |
ESPN |
The WNBA’s current TV deals will run through the 2025 season when its partnerships with ESPN, Amazon, CBS and Ion are set to expire. Its next media rights deal is likely to encompass both linear television and streaming broadcasts and could be a hybrid of some of the NBA’s current rights partners and rights partners unique to the WNBA, just as it’s structured now.
The NBA is in the middle of its exclusive negotiating window with Disney, which owns ESPN, and Warner Bros. Discovery, which owns TNT Sports. It is parceling together the WNBA rights with the NBA as it goes to market, and representing the WNBA in those talks (the NBA owns a 42.5 percent stake in the league, and several people own teams in both leagues).
Warner Bros. Discovery has shown interest in acquiring WNBA rights in the U.S., according to one person with knowledge of the talks. It just bought the right to broadcast the league in the United Kingdom and Ireland.
The next media deal will come with increasing rights fees for women’s sports. The National Women’s Soccer League agreed to deals that will pay the soccer league $60 million annually. WNBA commissioner Cathy Engelbert told CNBC she hopes to “at least double” the WNBA’s current fees, reportedly about $60 million annually, on its next deal.
“There’s no doubt, I think, especially over enormous interest, most recently around women’s college basketball and the growth in the WNBA over the last few years that the interest is heightened from where it used to be,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said when discussing the next media deal.
Clark’s popularity also has impacted the sports gambling market, which could be a way to bring in viewers and consumers. The Iowa-South Carolina championship game was the biggest women’s single betting event of all time on FanDuel, breaking the handle record set in Iowa’s Final Four matchup against UConn. The title game also featured a 155 percent increase in handle on FanDuel over the 2023 Iowa-LSU championship game, the company said.
Sorry, @FDSportsbook doesn’t agree
Currently, you can bet on the following props:
Caitlin Clark to lead the Indiana Fever in scoring -280
Clark to average 22+ points per game in the WNBA reg season (must play 28+ reg season games) -135
To record 130+ made 3s in the 2024 WNBA… pic.twitter.com/ETz0bTj759— SportsGridTV (@SportsGridTV) April 9, 2024
Bettors already seem to be following Clark to the pros, where FanDuel said that 76 percent of 2024 WNBA MVP bets, as of April 10, have been placed on the future Fever guard. If they also turn into viewers, it is a potential additional way for the league to lift ratings and attendance.
Central to Clark’s appeal is her greatness on the court. Before the national championship, Iowa coach Lisa Bluder expressed concern about how fatigue might affect Clark’s debut season — there is only about a month between her final college game and her first WNBA regular-season contest. Taurasi, the No. 1 pick in the 2004 WNBA Draft, said that Clark, like other rookies, will need time to adjust.
“There’s a period of grace that you have to give rookies when they get to the league,” Taurasi said. “We’ve had some of the greats to ever play basketball, and it takes two or three years to get used to a different game (against) the best players in the world. As long as everyone has expectations that are realistic, they should be fine.”
Yet, Indiana will look to set up Clark for success in both the short- and long-term. She will have an ideal pick-and-roll partner in reigning, unanimous Rookie of the Year Aliyah Boston, and she’ll play in a backcourt alongside 2023 All-Star Kelsey Mitchell. WNBA opponents — bigger, faster and stronger than what she faced in college — will attack Clark defensively. Still, some — even those tasked with limiting her success this season — are already bullish about her potential impact.
“Her game is going to translate,” Aces coach Becky Hammon said. “You can see her work ethic, her professionalism already right now, at Iowa, in how she approaches her craft.”
(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; Visual data: John Bradford / The Athletic, Amy Cavenaile / The Athletic; Photos of Fever logo and Caitlin Clark: M. Anthony Nesmith / Icon Sportswire / Getty, Thien-An Truong / ISI Photos)
Whatever you do, don’t think of a bird.
Now: What kind of bird are you not thinking about? A pigeon? A bald eagle? Something more poetic, like a skylark or a nightingale? In any case, would you say that this bird you aren’t thinking about is real?
Before you answer, read this poem, which is quite literally about not thinking of a bird.
Human consciousness is full of riddles. Neuroscientists, philosophers and dorm-room stoners argue continually about what it is and whether it even exists. For Wallace Stevens, the experience of having a mind was a perpetual source of wonder, puzzlement and delight — perfectly ordinary and utterly transcendent at the same time. He explored the mysteries and pleasures of consciousness in countless poems over the course of his long poetic career. It was arguably his great theme.
Stevens was born in 1879 and published his first book, “Harmonium,” in 1923, making him something of a late bloomer among American modernists. For much of his adult life, he worked as an executive for the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, rising to the rank of vice president. He viewed insurance less as a day job to support his poetry than as a parallel vocation. He pursued both activities with quiet diligence, spending his days at the office and composing poems in his head as he walked to and from work.
As a young man, Stevens dreamed of traveling to Europe, though he never crossed the Atlantic. In middle age he made regular trips to Florida, and his poems are frequently infused with ideas of Paris and Rome and memories of Key West. Others partake of the stringent beauty of New England. But the landscapes he explores, wintry or tropical, provincial or cosmopolitan, are above all mental landscapes, created by and in the imagination.
Are those worlds real?
Let’s return to the palm tree and its avian inhabitant, in that tranquil Key West sunset of the mind.
Until then, we find consolation in fangles.
When the director Rob Reiner cast his leads in the 1986 film “Stand by Me,” he looked for young actors who were as close as possible to the personalities of the four children they’d be playing. There was the wise beyond his years kid from a rough family (River Phoenix), the slightly dim worrywart (Jerry O’Connell), the cutup with a temper (Corey Feldman) and the sensitive, bookish boy.
Wil Wheaton was perfect for that last one, Gordie Lachance, a doe-eyed child who is ignored by his family in favor of his late older brother. Now, 40 years later, he’s traveling the country to attend anniversary screenings of the film, alongside O’Connell and Feldman, which has thrown him back into the turmoil that he felt as an adolescent.
Wheaton has channeled those emotions and his on-set memories into his latest project: narrating a new audiobook version of “The Body,” the 1982 Stephen King novella on which the film was based.
A few years ago, Wheaton started to float the idea of returning to the story that gave him his big break — that of a quartet of boys in 1959 Oregon, in their last days before high school, setting out to find a classmate’s dead body. “I’ve been telling the story of ‘Stand By Me’ since I was 12 years old,” he said.
But this time was different. Wheaton, who has narrated dozens of audiobooks, including Andy Weir’s “The Martian” and Ernest Cline’s “Ready Player One,” says he has come to enjoy narration more than screen acting. “I’m safe, I’m in the booth, nobody’s looking at me and I can just tell you a story.”
The fact that he, an older man looking back on his younger years, is narrating a story about an older man looking back on his younger years, is not lost on Wheaton. King’s original story is bathed in nostalgia. Coming to terms with death and loss is one of its primary themes.
Two days after appearing on stage at the Academy Awards as part of a tribute to Reiner — who was murdered in 2025 alongside his wife, Michele — Wheaton got on the phone to talk about recording the audiobook, reliving his favorite scenes from the film and reexamining a quintessential story of childhood loss through the lens of his own.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
“I felt really close to him, and my memory of him.”
Wheaton on channeling a co-star’s performance.
There’s this wonderful scene in “Stand By Me.” Gordie and Chris are walking down the tracks talking about junior high. Chris is telling Gordie, “I wish to hell I was your dad, because I care about you, and he obviously doesn’t.”
It’s just so honest and direct, in a way that kids talk to each other that adults don’t. And I think that one of the reasons that really sticks with people, and that piece really lands on a lot of audiences, and has for 40 years, is, just too many people have been Gordie in that scene.
That scene is virtually word for word taken from the text of the book. And when I was narrating that, I made a deliberate choice to do my best to recreate what River did in that scene.
“You’re just a kid,
Gordie–”
“I wish to fuck
I was your father!”
he said angrily.
“You wouldn’t go around
talking about takin those stupid shop courses if I was!
It’s like
God gave you something,
all those stories
you can make up, and He said:
This is what we got for you, kid.
Try not to lose it.
But kids lose everything
unless somebody looks out for them and if your folks
are too fucked up to do it
then maybe I ought to.”
I watched that scene a couple of times because I really wanted — I don’t know why it was so important to me to — well, I know: because I loved him, and I miss him. And I wanted to bring him into this as best as I could, right?
So I was reading that scene, and the words are identical to the script. And I had this very powerful flashback to being on the train tracks that day in Cottage Grove, Oregon. And I could see River standing next to them. They’re shooting my side of the scene and there’s River, right next to the camera, doing his off-camera dialogue, and there’s the sound guy, and there’s the boom operator. There’s my key light.
I could hear and feel it. It was the weirdest thing. It’s like I was right back there.
I was able to really take in the emotional memory of being Gordie in all of those scenes. So when I was narrating him and I’m me and I’m old with all of this experience, I just drew on what I remembered from being that little boy and what I remember of those friendships and what they meant to me and what they mean to me today.
“Rob gave me a gift. Rob gave me a career.”
Wheaton recalls the “Stand By Me” director’s way with kids on set, as well as his recent Oscars tribute.
Rob really encouraged us to be kids.
Jerry tells the most amazing story about that scene, where we were all sitting around, and doing our bit, and he improvised. He was just goofing around — we were just playing — and he said something about spitting water at the fat kid.
We get to the end of the scene, and he hears Rob. Rob comes around from behind the thing, and he goes, “Jerry!” And Jerry thinks, “Oh no, I’m in trouble. I’m in trouble because I improvised, and I’m not supposed to improvise.”
The context for Jerry is that he had been told by the adults in his life, “Sit on your hands and shut up. Stop trying to be a cutup. Stop trying to be funny. Stop disrupting people. Just be quiet.” And Jerry thinks, “Oh my God. I didn’t shut up. I’m in trouble. I’m gonna get fired.”
Rob leans in to all of us, and Rob says, “Hey, guys, do you see that? More of that. Do that!”
The whole time when you’re a kid actor, you’re just around all these adults who are constantly telling you to grow up. They’re mad that you’re being a kid. Rob just created an environment where not only was it supported that we would be kids — and have fun, and follow those kid instincts and do what was natural — it was expected. It was encouraged. We were supposed to do it.
They chanted together:
“I don’t shut up,
I grow up.
And when I look at you I throw up.”
“Then your mother goes around the corner
and licks it up,”
I said, and hauled ass out of there,
giving them the finger over my shoulder as I went.
I never had any friends later on
like the ones I had when I was twelve.
Jesus, did you?
When we were at the Oscars, I looked at Jerry. And we looked at this remarkable assemblage of the most amazingly talented, beautiful artists and storytellers. We looked around, and Jerry leans down, and he said, “We all got our start with Rob Reiner. He trusted every single one of us.”
And to stand there for him, when I really thought that I would be standing with him to talk about this stuff — it was a lot.
“I was really really really excited — like jumping up and down.”
The scene Wheaton was most looking forward to narrating: the tale of Lard Ass Hogan.
I was so excited to narrate it. It’s a great story! It’s a funny story. It’s such a lovely break — it’s an emotional and tonal shift from what’s happening in the movie.
I know this as a writer: You work to increase and release tension throughout a narrative, and Stephen King uses humor really effectively to release that tension. But it also raises the stakes, because we have these moments of joy and these moments of things being very silly in the midst of a lot of intensity.
That’s why the story of Lard Ass Hogan is so fun for me to tell. Because in the middle of that, we stop to do something that’s very, very fun, and very silly and very celebratory.
“Will you shut up and let him tell it?”
Teddy hollered.
Vern blinked.
“Sure. Yeah.
Okay.”
“Go on, Gordie,”
Chris said. “It’s not really much—”
“Naw,
we don’t expect much from a wet end like you,”
Teddy said,
“but tell it anyway.”
I cleared my throat. “So anyway.
It’s Pioneer Days,
and on the last night
they have these three big events.
There’s an egg-roll for the little kids and a sack-race for kids that are like eight or nine,
and then there’s the pie-eating contest.
And the main guy of the story
is this fat kid nobody likes
named Davie Hogan.”
When I narrate this story — whenever there is a moment of levity or humor, whenever there are those brief little moments that are the seasoning of the meal that makes it all so real and relatable — yes, it was very important to me to capture those moments.
I’m shifting in my chair, so I can feel each of those characters. It’s something that doesn’t exist in live action. It doesn’t exist in any other media.
“I feel the loss.”
Wheaton remembers River Phoenix.
The novella “The Body” is very much about Gordie remembering Chris. It’s darker, and it’s more painful, than the movie is.
I’ve been watching the movie on this tour and seeing River a lot. I remember him as a 14- and 15-year-old kid who just seemed so much older, and so much more experienced and so much wiser than me, and I’m only a year younger than him.
What hurts me now, and what I really felt when I was narrating this, is knowing what River was going through then. We didn’t know. I still don’t know the extent of how he was mistreated, but I know that he was. I know that adults failed him. That he should have been protected in every way that matters. And he just wasn’t.
And I, like Gordie, remember a boy who was loving. So loving, and generous and cared deeply about everyone around him, all the time. Who deserved to live a full life. Who had so much to offer the world. And it’s so unfair that he’s gone and taken from us. I had to go through a decades-long grieving process to come to terms with him dying.
Near the end
of 1971,
Chris
went into a Chicken Delight in Portland
to get a three-piece Snack Bucket.
Just ahead of him,
two men started arguing
about which one had been first in line. One of them pulled a knife.
Chris,
who had always been the best of us
at making peace,
stepped between them and was stabbed in the throat.
The man with the knife had spent time in four different institutions;
he had been released from Shawshank State Prison
only the week before.
Chris died almost instantly.
It is a privilege that I was allowed to tell this story. I get to tell Gordie Lachance’s story as originally imagined by Stephen King, with all of the experience of having lived my whole adult life with the memory of spending three months in Gordie Lachance’s skin.
Welcome to Great Adaptations, the Book Review’s regular multiple-choice quiz about printed works that have gone on to find new life as movies, television shows, theatrical productions and more. This week’s challenge highlights offbeat television shows that began as comic books. Just tap or click your answers to the five questions below. And scroll down after you finish the last question for links to the comics and their screen versions.
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