The WNBA released its 2024 schedule on Wednesday, and one thing was glaringly clear from even the briefest of glances: Caitlin Clark is already changing the league despite not yet being in it.
The Indiana Fever, who hold the first pick in the 2024 WNBA Draft on April 15, will have 36 of their games broadcast on national television this summer. A WNBA season is 40 games long, so all but four Fever games will be viewable from around the country.
Clark, who last month became the all-time Division I leader in points scored by a man or a woman (one of numerous records she set this season), is projected to go No. 1 in next week’s draft. Even though the draft has yet to take place and Clark won’t be a member of any team until her name is called, the WNBA appears to be under the assumption that the Fever will choose Clark with their draft pick.
It’s more than a fair assumption to make. The Fever haven’t been a competitive team in years. The last time they had a winning record was 2015. They went .500 in 2016 and since then have won more than 10 games in a season just twice. Clark is supremely talented, a once-in-a-generation player at the college level who just happens to be the hottest athlete on the planet right now. It’s a no-brainer.
But since the draft hasn’t yet taken place, the WNBA can’t actually say they’ve built the entire 2024 schedule around Clark being drafted by the Fever. So they did their best to work around that in the press release.
Indiana, which is positioned to add the No. 1 overall selection in the 2024 WNBA Draft presented by State Farm (Monday, April 15 at 7:30 p.m. ET on ESPN) to a roster that features 2023 Kia WNBA Rookie of the Year Aliyah Boston, will have 36 of its 40 games featured by the WNBA’s national broadcast and streaming partners. The Fever will be featured eight times across ABC, ESPN and ESPN2, eight times on ION and twice on the CBS Television Network. In addition, Indiana will be highlighted 13 times on NBA TV, four times on Prime Video, and once on CBS Sports Network.
Make no mistake: Aliyah Boston is a dynamite player who deservedly won the 2023 Rookie of the Year award. But she was on the Fever last year and the WNBA didn’t broadcast 90% of their games nationally.
But Boston AND Clark together on the same team? Now that’s worth 36 nationally televised games.
Source Agencies
