Without mincing words, Caitlin Clark alone drives the majority of the WNBA. We can argue about the extent and the contributions of other players like Angel Reese and A’ja Wilson but Clark’s instant effect has been felt throughout the league. According to a report, she singlehandedly drove 26.5% of all WNBA economic activity last season. In a league with 150-160 players. For one player to have such an impact is unbelievable. And that is why her injury and absence for two weeks is such a big deal for the WNBA as a whole and ofcourse Indiana Fever.

The discourse over this topic last season was some fans refusing to accept what the popularity numbers like merchandise sales, ticket sales and viewing numbers on ESPN. But that is beside the point. If Caitlin Clark moved out of the WNBA, the impact would be something the league would take years to recreate. We can’t say the same for any other player in the league, of course, they contribute to the league’s recent implosion but not as much as Clark.

And as if we needed more proof of the Caitlin Clark effect, the tickets for the coming four Fever games that Clark is expected to miss are immediately going for a lower price than before. The extent is staggering, as the tickets have lost 42% of their value, going down from $137 to $80 on TickPick. 

She recently broke the viewership records on ESPN with their opening game 35-point blowout against the Chicago Sky. The game peaked at 3.1 million viewers and averaged 2.7 million viewers and was the most-watched WNBA regular season game in 25 years, according to The Athletic.

Fever has consistently been one of the only sell-out crowds in the WNBA, hosting more than 17,000 fans on average in 2024, which is almost twice the league average. And how do we know it was because of Clark? The Fever’s 2023 average attendance was 4067 and it increased by more than 4 times after Clark came in.

Since then, Fever’s economic growth has also accelerated because of her, with Clark’s Indiana jersey sold out less than an hour after the Fever drafted her as the overall No. 1 pick in April 2024, making Clark the top seller of any draft night pick in the company’s history. It ended up being the second-best-selling jersey last year regardless of gender.

“If things just go as they were, and we have an expanded season of 22 home games with modest inflation, I’m looking at $875 [million],” Ryan Brewer, an associate professor of finance at Indiana University, said to NBC News about Clark’s potential monetary value for the 2025 season. “And I could easily see that eclipsing a billion dollars on the economic impact of Caitlin Clark this year.”

So even a two-week absence of Clark will immensely impact Fever but she is a human after all. Injuries are a part of the game and Clark is missing a professional game for the first time in her career. She had a minor discomfort early in the season, missing their first preseason game against the Washington Mystics but White has revealed that this is a new problem and not an aggravation of a previous injury.

Fever Head Coach Confirms Clark’s Injury Is Different from Preseason One

When news of Caitlin Clark’s injury broke, fans quickly blamed the Indiana Fever’s management. Many believed the team mishandled her preseason injury and assumed it had gotten worse because she was playing around 35 minutes per game in the first four matches. The feeling was that the team pushed her too hard too early, putting short-term performance ahead of her long-term health. Stephanie White has just declared that this is not the same one that she was struggling with. 

“I don’t know when it happened,” Fever coach Stephanie White said. “I know (after the Liberty game) we got a message that something was going on with her leg and they were getting an MRI, and then we got the word.”

It seems this is a new injury and the management wants to prevent any further damage. It’s better to have her out for early-season games rather than later when you are fighting for a place in the playoffs or, worse, are in the playoffs. The coming games are also not that high intensity and they could get results even without Clark. They had a difficult start to their schedule with games against Dream and the Liberty and they will now get into more of the easier games. 

Clark is expected to miss at least four games: Wednesday’s matchup against Washington in Baltimore, Friday’s game against Connecticut, the June 3 game against Washington, and the June 7 game at Chicago’s United Center. She will be reevaluated on June 9, just one day before the Fever are scheduled to face Atlanta on June 10.  The approach for the injury is they want to ‘nip it in the bud.’ So that Atlanta game is also unlikely for Clark.