The Washington Mystics are having trouble pulling a crowd, but the real problem wasn’t the players— it was the price tag. A playoff game featuring Angel Reese, the home team’s first postseason game since 2019, and a venue with only 4,200 seats seems like an easy ticket seller in most cases. However, the scene inside Washington’s CareFirst Arena was not pretty, and it led Caitlin Clark’s biographer to question what went wrong.
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Christine Brennan, the author of ‘On Her Game: Caitlin Clark and the Revolution in Women’s Sports‘, addressed CBS reporter Jan Crawford’s comments on how Game 2 of the series between the Atlanta Dream and the Washington Mystics had several vacancies in the stands, pointing out a concerning lack of fans.
“That’s a 4,200-seat arena,” she wrote on X. “With the Dream & Angel Reese in town for the playoffs, the empty seats are a big surprise. The Mystics moved two 2024 regular-season Caitlin Clark games to Cap One: 20,333 and 20,711.”
Brennan isn’t wrong. The two games the Indiana Fever played against the Mystics at the Capital One Arena saw massive attendance numbers, with the 20,711 mark from the second game setting the record for the highest single-game attendance in league history, before being broken this season by a game between the Toronto Tempo and the Dallas Wings on July 10, which saw 20,996 fans in the stands.
That influx of fans in the stands is not just because of Clark. Washington has seen a strong home presence this season, averaging about 4,454 fans per game, operating at over 100% arena capacity for CareFirst, according to Across the Timeline. Notably, this number likely includes their final regular-season game, played at Capital One Arena. That means the issue isn’t a lack of interest in the Mystics.
It might not be due to the lack of interest in Angel Reese either. Back in 2024, the same year Clark drew over 41,000 fans over her two games, Reese and the Chicago Sky also had one of their games moved to Capital One Arena, drawing 10,000 fans.
There has been plenty of hype behind Reese this season as well. During the playoff series against the Mystics, Reese won the 2026 Defensive Player of the Year award after leading the Dream to a 30-14 season, during which she averaged 12.1 rebounds per game and recorded 32 double-doubles.
That’s where Jan Crawford’s comments, the CBS reporter Brennan referred to, become notable. According to her, the problem is the poor fan experience and the extremely high ticket prices.
“I also hope @TedLeonsis and @WashMystics ownership will travel to other @wnba arenas, including where the @AtlantaDream plays regular season, to understand what the fan experience and hospitality should be,” she wrote on X.
“Or better yet, Mystics TICKET HOLDERS could travel to those other arenas and see how our organization and facility fall short. Our team and passionate fan base deserve so much better.”
According to her, the ticket prices were too high for regular fans who wanted to come to the game. On top of that, people who go to events for the hospitality and the experience would find the services subpar, giving them the impression that the tickets are overpriced.
That tracks when we compare prices for the two games in the series between the Dream and the Mystics. According to a report from The Athletic, for a seat in Atlanta’s arena, the least amount a fan had to pay was $67. Meanwhile, at CareFirst Arena, fans had to pay prices above $300 for an upper bowl seat.
The Mystics have already shown that their market can support enormous crowds when the right attraction is present, as we saw when Clark and Reese came to the city as rookies. Now, despite having a chance to capitalize on the return of playoffs to Washington for the first time since 2019, the team seems to have failed to recreate its regular-season attendance.