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

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

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

Last summer’s contest, an exhibition between Team USA and the league’s best non-Olympians, including Clark, garnered 3.442 million viewers. 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 was in contrast to Saturday’s game, a comfortable 151-131 victory by Team Collier, captained by Napheesa Collier, over Team Clark, captained by the injured Indiana Fever star.

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

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

The game itself still performed relatively well, but the real uptick came on Friday night. The 3-Point Contest and Skills Contest were viewed by 1.318 million viewers, an 89% increase versus last year when 695,000 people tuned in. There are slight caveats to the bump in the early exhibition; Friday’s event was shorter by 30 minutes (68 in 2025 versus 98 in 2024), and it began a hour later (9 p.m. ET versus 8 p.m. ET last summer).

Clark’s participation in the 3-point show would have boosted the number even more, especially 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 came in the backdrop of a simmering labor dispute between the owners and the players. Those tensions don’t seem to be affecting ratings, which have been solid despite Clark’s injury absences.