Nothing worthwhile happens overnight. For the WNBA, that wait stretched across 3 decades. Long labeled a ‘developing league’, it struggled to match America’s expectations. Then came 2024. Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese entered the W, and with them came the surge the league had been chasing. By September, the WNBA had proudly announced: “The league delivered its most-watched regular season in 24 years, finishing with its highest attendance in 22 years.” And with Paige Bueckers set to join the pros in 2025, the stage seemed primed for even greater heights.

However, the dream was turned upside down by May, as the biggest star fell to the ground, a reignition of something so frustratingly recurring… Every calculation went for a toss. “WNBA without Clark: The league feels the hurt”: Headlines captured the moment with blunt honesty! The sad trend continued for months.

But on July 15, Caitlin Clark, again, wasn’t moving around too easily in the final minute against the Sun. Fever head coach Stephanie White later confirmed the 2024 ROTY “felt a little something in her groin.” This didn’t just shake Indiana, but Cathy Engelbert too.  The panic just clarified one thing: CC’s impact.

A league that had seen a 48% jump in regular-season attendance in 2024, hitting milestones for the first time in decades, suddenly found itself without its biggest attraction. But the fight isn’t over until nothing remains. Paige Bueckers, who didn’t take the 2024 WNBA bus, stepped up.

The hopes were rocket-high after Paige Bueckers drew 8.5 million viewers to watch her lead UConn past South Carolina for the NCAA championship. And as she stepped into the WNBA, expectations followed that she, alongside Caitlin Clark, would bring new eyes and elevate the league’s profile. But when Clark went down, the spotlight shifted, and the burden fell heavily on Bueckers. A question quickly surfaced: could the UConn star command the same level of viewership that Clark had made a routine?

The Paige Bueckers Effect on WNBA Ratings

The story goes back half a decade. Paige Bueckers was ESPN’s No. 1 prospect from the 2020 class, the same class that had future stars like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, Kamilla Cardoso, and Cameron Brink. While many of her peers leaped to the pros by 2024, Bueckers’ path was different.

Injuries delayed her WNBA entry by a year. “I just feel like I’m not done yet here,” Bueckers said when she chose to return to UConn. But when she finally declared for the draft a year later, the stage was set for records to fall.

• SeatGeek reported ticket sales went through the roof in anticipation of Bueckers’ first game, skyrocketing 11x more than compared to five days before the WNBA draft… and that was just the beginning.
• According to TMZ, site traffic spiked by a jaw-dropping 905%.
• Over at Vivid Seats, the story wasn’t any different. Average ticket prices for Wings games jumped 38% from last season, and the site traffic? It went up to 920%! To put it in perspective, the Indiana Fever had a 60% increase in ticket traffic after it was determined they would land Caitlin Clark.

Bueckers’ debut against the Minnesota Lynx pulled in 639,000 viewers on Ion! When paired with the Valkyries vs Sparks (581,000 viewers), the average of both games was 612,000, a 121% increase from Ion’s doubleheader (Mystics vs Sun, Storm vs Lynx) from the year prior.

But here’s the wild part.

Even with the Wings struggling this season and sitting at the bottom of the table with a 9-30 record, the viewership has stayed surprisingly strong.

Earlier this week, the WNBA announced that the 13 teams have drawn a total of 2,501,609 fans over 226 games this season. A record that surpasses the previous mark set in 2002, when the league had 16 teams. Back then, it took 256 games to reach the same milestone. Clearly, fans are still showing up in big numbers, even with Caitlin Clark sidelined.

One factor behind these numbers is Paige Bueckers and the Dallas Wings.

The Wings have averaged 11,495 fans in their 18 away games this season, according to Across the Timeline, ranking second only to the Indiana Fever (despite being the last seeded team!). But while the in-arena attendance keeps growing, has the TV viewership followed the same trend?

Caitlin Clark Out… WNBA Ratings Down?

When Caitlin Clark injured her left quadriceps, nationally televised WNBA viewership dropped by 55%, according to Nielsen ratings. But that’s not all. The Fever National TV games were down 53% since her injury, going from an average of 1,810,000 viewers before she got hurt to just 847,000 viewers after!

But how can we overlook Paige Bueckers’ record-breaking debut? With 639,000 viewers on Ion, it became the second most-watched WNBA game ever on Ion. Terms & conditions, if you exclude games without Caitlin Clark.

Did you know?

• The Indiana superstar’s WNBA debut drew a massive 2.1 million viewers across all platforms, making it the most-watched WNBA matchup since 2001, when the Los Angeles Sparks faced the Houston Comets and averaged 2.45 million viewers on NBC.
• The inaugural game of the 1997 season is the only game with over 5 million viewers.

But perhaps the biggest difference was felt when the 2025 WNBA All-Star ratings came out. A game that Caitlin Clark did not participate in. According to Sportico, the midseason exhibition pulled in 2.19 million viewers for ABC on Saturday night. It’s interesting to note that while that’s 36% lower than last year, it still ranks as the second-most-watched All-Star Game in WNBA history. It was also up 158% versus the 2023 All-Star Game.

Fair to say that Caitlin Clark’s absence still had an impact, but the WNBA’s product this season kept fans coming in strong numbers.

The rookie of the year race between Sonia Citron and Paige Bueckers, the MVP battle featuring Napheesa Collier, A’ja Wilson, Kelsey Mitchell, and Alyssa Thomas, and the intense playoff race between the Storm, Fever, Sparks, and Valkyries all helped ensure that attendance didn’t dip this season.

This brings us back to the question we asked at the start: just how big was the Paige Bueckers effect this season?

Verdict: Has Paige Bueckers Emerged as the WNBA’s Leading Ratings Attraction

To put it simply, the answer is… No. Not a straight hard no. Yes, Paige has made a noticeable impact on the league, helping the Wings pull in record-breaking crowds and ranking second in away-game attendance. But back at home? The story’s a bit different.

The College Park Center, where the Wings play, is only 11th in the league in arena capacity, according to BetMGM, so it’s no shocker that Dallas is averaging roughly 7.4k fans per game. So who else is helping push those attendance numbers up?

The newbie, Golden State Valkyries!

The Valkyries were the 13th team to join the league, and 2025 marked their very first season. So, the excitement was naturally off the charts. And let’s not forget that they play at the Chase Center, home of the Warriors and the 4th biggest arena in the W right now. So yeah, the attendance numbers were always going to get a major boost!

According to Sports Business Journal’s analysis, the WNBA is targeting nearly 3 million fans in total attendance this season. And a big reason for that is the Golden State Valkyries. They have sold out all 17 games at the Chase Center — every single one of them.

With five home games still to go (technically six, but the Mystics game is already sold out), and an average of 18,064 fans per game, the highest in the league, it is clear the Valkyries have been a massive driver behind the W’s recently reported 2.5 million total in-arena attendance for the season.

And add to that the fact that the number of home games could go up if the Valkyries make the playoffs and make a deep run.

So while Paige Bueckers has no doubt brought a lot of eyeballs to the game, it wouldn’t be entirely accurate to pin the spike in attendance on her alone. The league is on a steady upward curve, and with talent being added every year, it’s no longer reasonable to credit just one player for the growth.

Yes, the Caitlin Clark effect played a huge role in helping grow the league, but this is now more than just Caitlin Clark, Paige Bueckers, or Angel Reese’s league. There are plenty of other players and teams to watch, and as a brand, that’s exactly what you want! And if you are from Toronto, expect the whole of Canada to rally behind you the next season… All in all, the league grows. The players benefit. And fans find solace in new stars in every draft.