The WNBA is celebrating a new attendance record with just one week left in the 2025 regular season, despite star player Caitlin Clark’s injury-plagued campaign. Since being drafted by the Indiana Fever in 2024, the 23-year-old has been a game-changer for women’s basketball, driving historic spikes in ticket sales and viewership for both her team and the league. Last season saw average viewership nearly triple compared to the previous year.
Expectations were high for continued growth in 2025, particularly after half the league relocated their home games against Indiana to larger venues to accommodate the surge of fans interested in Clark. However, the 2024 Rookie of the Year would only make 13 appearances this season. Battling injuries early in the season, Clark has been out of action since July 15. But her absence hasn’t slowed the league’s momentum.
Even without Clark on the court for most of the season, the Fever still leads the WNBA in attendance, drawing 700,000 fans across all its home and road games – 100,000 more than the next closest team.
The surge in fan support has helped the WNBA shatter its previous regular-season attendance record of 2.36 million, set in 2002, three weeks ago, according to data from Across the Timeline.
Over the weekend, the WNBA set a new record, surpassing 3 million total attendees for its regular-season games as the postseason begins to heat up.
The league’s abundance of talent, including stars like A’ja Wilson, Breanna Stewart, Napheesa Collier, and Angel Reese, has kept fans eagerly returning for more.
Moreover, the decision to extend the season to 44 games per team – the maximum number of games permitted under the current Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) – has also contributed. The average attendance for 2025 currently stands at a record-breaking 10,954.
To surpass the previous record of 10,868 attendees set in 1998, the WNBA will need to average 8,511 attendees for the remaining 10 games. Given the current trend, this seems increasingly likely.
The Golden State Valkyries have also played a significant role in boosting these statistics.
On Saturday, the franchise announced that it sold out all 22 home games at the Chase Center this season, setting a new WNBA record for total (397,408) and average (18,064) home attendance.
Unfortunately for the Valyries, it appears unlikely they’ll be able to host a playoff game at the Chase Center.
Despite Golden State being the first expansion team in league history to qualify for the postseason, a scheduling conflict means its first-round home game will have to be relocated to the SAP Center in San Jose.