In a city full of life, welcoming fan zones, art installations, and just hooping all around, there remained a sting none could overturn– Caitlin Clark would remain on the sideline for the All-Star weekend. There would be no long-awaited 3-point contest debut or an iconic sight alongside the league’s greats on the court. It did not take an analyst to call a dip in the ratings. But just how true did it turn out to be?

Being the captain and the crowd favorite with the most votes at her home stadium in Indiana, Caitlin Clark’s presence was important for the success of this weekend. And the impact was felt almost immediately when the ticket prices on TickPick in Indianapolis fell from $121 to just $64 after she withdrew. So the weekend was expected to be a bust in comparison. However, looks like the world has caught up; or at least a majority of it. 

A couple of days in since the All-Star weekend, ESPN finally released the viewership numbers, and it proved enough to put on a smile.

This was the second-most-watched all-star game ever, with 2.2 million average viewers on ABC. Which is the first, you ask? Well, that honour still goes to the 2024 All-Star Game, which had 3.44M. The ratings are down 36% from last year, but it is still better than any other All-Star Game in history. Furthermore, the 3-point contest and the skills challenge also had a healthy viewership with 1.3 million average viewers. It is up 89% from last year, which had 695,000 viewers.

The last All-Star Game was groundbreaking. It was the first time in 19 years that the event crossed the one million viewership mark and only the third time in history when the game topped the 1 million viewers. Now this one is added to the list, and this is expected to be a habit from here on. So when Clark said, “I feel like we’re just scratching the surface,” last year, she wasn’t wrong. The players could feel the growth as they stood in the Gainbridge Fieldhouse. 

“It was an incredible weekend. This is my fourth time, and I thought by far it was the most packed, not just from the game standpoint, but 3-point contest, skills contest. The Orange Carpet was live. Every event that I saw that a player was doing was absolutely packed,” Kelsey Plum had expressed following the festivities.

To put into perspective, the 2023 weekend drew only 850,000 viewers. It’s a positive sign that the league is trending towards an upturn in viewership even without its star player. Among this season’s games, the All-Star Game stands as the fourth most-watched game, only behind the three Indiana Fever regular-season games. The Chicago Sky’s opening day fixture remains the most watched, with 2.7 million viewers. It is followed by the two New York Liberty clashes, which had around 2.2 million viewers each.

The star player impact on All-star rating is nothing new 

Yes, the ratings went down with Caitlin Clark out injured. Many consider this a complete dependence on Clark to generate ratings and impact, and a few would argue with that. It is all about the star player status. 

The NBA experienced a similar drop in the ratings this year when they recorded  4.7 million viewers, as compared to the nearly 5.4 million who watched in 2024. That is a 13% drop which marks the second-lowest All-Star Game viewership in the last 25 years. The previous 3 years are all among the lowest, and the only games with less than 6 million people tuning in.

And the reason? LeBron James pulled out of the game hours earlier with an ankle injury. He missed an All-Star game for the first time in his career. Milwaukee forward Giannis Antetokounmpo also did not participate because of a strained left calf. Anthony Edwards did not check into the game because he was experiencing groin soreness. So you can guess the reason behind the dip.  

The All-Star Game is never just about the basketball; its a celebration of the league and its best players. So sure a few refused to tune in, but a lot more seem to have helped make a case for the ongoing CBA negotiations. Hence, if anything, the weekend was a show of WNBA’s growing strength.