The Washington Mystics beat the Indiana Fever on Thursday night, 92–91. Guard Caitlin Clark played limited minutes for the Fever as they had already clinched the No. 6 seed in the WNBA playoffs, but she played nonetheless, explaining last week how important it was for her to show up for the fans. And boy, were there a lot of them.
20,711 in fact.
The largest crowd in WNBA history.
Clark made an immediate impact and the WNBA set a number of records this year thanks to her immense popularity. She was at Iowa in April and by June the league was seeing the highest attendance in a quarter-century and setting ratings records. It continued through the entire season with ESPN seeing 170% ratings increases.
If you're into these kinds of things, it will be really interesting to see how the Fever and the rest of the teams do in the ratings this weekend with the playoffs starting against a quadruple-header on an NFL Sunday. While that may hurt, if Indiana can force a winner-take-all Game 3 at home next Friday, who knows how high this can go?
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Caitlin Clark Helped Set One More Record on the Final Night of the Regular Season.