WNBA All-Star Game Ratings Fall 36% Without Clark Playing

The WNBA All-Star Game, hindered by Caitlin Clark not playing, drew in a sizable audience for the 2nd summer in a row.

The midseason exhibition drew 2.19 million audiences for ABC on Saturday night. While the total audience was down 36% versus in 2015, the occasion was the second-most watched All-Star Game in WNBA history.

Last summertime’s contest, an exhibit between Group U.S.A. and the league’s best non-Olympians, including Clark, gathered 3.442 million audiences. The game itself was tight, as the WNBA All-Stars pulled out the 117-109 win over the American squad just ahead of the Paris Olympics.

That remained in contrast to Saturday’s game, a comfy 151-131 victory by Group Collier, captained by Napheesa Collier, over Team Clark, captained by the hurt Indiana Fever star.

ESPN said this weekend’s game was up 158% versus the 2023 All-Star Video Game, before Clark’s arrival in the league, which drew in 850,000 audiences.

Clark did not contend in any of the on-court events in Indianapolis due to her most current injury, suffered in the subsiding seconds of the Fever’s July 15 win over Connecticut. The second-year guard has actually missed out on 10 regular-season games as well as the Commissioner’s Cup final (which the Fever won) during the very first half of the season due to several lower body injuries.

The game itself still carried out fairly well, but the genuine uptick came on Friday night. The 3-point Contest and Skills Contest were seen by 1.318 million viewers, an 89% boost versus in 2015, when 695,000 individuals tuned in. There are minor cautions to the bump in the early exhibition; Friday’s event was much shorter by thirty minutes (68 in 2025 versus 98 in 2024), and it began a hour later on (9 p.m. ET versus 8 p.m. ET last summertime).

Clark’s involvement in the 3-point program would have increased the number much more, particularly as she would have gone against New York Liberty guard Sabrina Ionescu, who won her second 3-point crown. Ionescu’s Liberty backcourt mate, Nastasha Cloud, won the skills contest.

The league’s midseason break can be found in the backdrop of a simmering labor disagreement in between the owners and the players. Those tensions do not appear to be impacting ratings, which have been solid in spite of Clark’s injury lacks.