Riley Gaines: Caitlin Clark’s abuse was rooted in jealousy, not race or sexuality
Riley Gaines addresses the controversy surrounding WNBA star Kaitlyn Clarke, arguing that concerns for Clarke stem from her exceptional talent, not her race or sexuality. Gaines suggests that envy from other players fuels abuse on the court and the self-destructive nature of the league. She questions the double standards applied to various athletes.
The WNBA has another Kaitlyn Clark television number worth celebrating.
And this one may be even more impressive than some of the larger ones.
Clark and the Indiana Fever helped average 1.04 million viewers for Wednesday night’s game against the Los Angeles Sparks, according to USA Sports PR.
WNBA viewership reached a milestone as Kaitlyn Clark and the Indiana Fever drew 1.04 million viewers against the Los Angeles Sparks in a 10:00 pm ET game on Wednesday. (Tyler Ross/NBAE via Getty Images)
The Fever lost 106-92, with Clarke playing just 16 minutes in her return from a back injury that had kept her out for the previous two weeks. But here it seems secondary to the larger story.
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One million viewers is a monstrous number for the WNBA under almost any circumstances.
But these were not entirely favorable circumstances.
The game was broadcast on USA Network and CNBC. Clark drew a much larger audience on television, but it was only on cable.
Also, this was not a weekend demo game. It wasn’t even broadcast in the friendly weekday window. The game, played in Los Angeles, began Wednesday night at 10:00 pm ET.
And it still averaged over a million viewers.
Fever-Sparks was the network’s most-watched WNBA game ever, up 149% from the cable TV average in 2025, according to USA Sports PR, citing Nielsen Big Data + Panel data. The network also reported that for the first time in WNBA history, a game that started at 10:00 pm ET averaged at least one million viewers.
This is a very big deal.
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Indiana’s game against the Dallas Wings averaged 2.49 million viewers on ABC during its opening weekend, making it the league’s fourth-largest audience, including the playoffs and All-Star Games, since 2000. Clark and the Fever later averaged 2.56 million viewers for the CBS game against the New York Liberty, the WNBA’s third-largest audience since 2000.
Obviously these were huge numbers, and they speak volumes about Clark’s enormous popularity.
Caitlin Clark is the most popular player in the WNBA by a wide margin. (Christian Petersen/Getty Images)
While the Fever-Sparks number tells a different story, it shouldn’t be considered any less important. In some ways, this is more impressive than previous highs.
These numbers show that Clark can draw the WNBA to a seven-figure TV audience even in the brutal East Coast midweek cable TV window.
Before Clark arrived, the WNBA had gone nearly 16 years without a game averaging a million viewers. The previous seven-figure match came in 2008, when Candace Parker’s pro debut averaged 1.07 million viewers on ABC.
It was an old ceiling, and it required a long-awaited rookie debut, airing at 3:30 pm ET Saturday afternoon on a major broadcast network.
Now that Clark is involved, apparently one million viewers on cable TV at 10 pm ET are in play.
Even Clark or Fever didn’t like the game itself. The star guard returned from a back injury aggravated during the June 24 game against the Phoenix Mercury and scored just nine points in 16 minutes. Indiana trailed throughout the second half and never came close to a more than nine-point deficit in the fourth quarter.
The WNBA and its media supporters continue to try to frame the league’s boom as a broader story in women’s basketball. There is a deal of truth in it. The league is clearly in a better position now than it was a few years ago. The product has become more visible than ever.
But the biggest TV numbers continue to point to Clark.
“Kaitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever” drew 1.04 million viewers on cable television at 10 pm ET on Wednesday, marking a historic event for the WNBA. (Andy Lyons/Getty Images)
Sports Media Watch noted that the five most-watched WNBA games this season featured Indiana.
There’s an interesting wrinkle there too. The Fever has started putting up good numbers even when Clarke isn’t playing.
Indiana’s July 5 game against the Las Vegas A’s without Clark averaged 1.55 million viewers on ESPN’s Women’s Sports Sundays, making it the WNBA’s largest cable or streaming audience of the season to that point.
But this is not the argument against Clark that some people think.
In fact, it’s the other way around.
Clark built the Fever into the WNBA’s most important television brand. The team now carries national interests in a way it never did before its arrival. If anything, this is more of an argument in Clark’s favor. She’s generated so much interest in Fever that people are willing to watch even when she’s not acting.
Fever games without Clarke also receive more viewership than games without Fever. So it’s not just that the entire WNBA attracts a larger audience.
The 1.55 million viewers on July 5 was more than the previous two ESPN Women’s Sports Sundays combined. Neither of those games, Liberty-Valkyries (743,000 viewers) and Liberty-Sparks (778,000), featured Fever.
The WNBA is growing. Even attracting over 700,000 viewers to non-Fever games is a huge increase from the pre-Clark era.
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But every time the league scores another historic TV ratings hit, there’s a common denominator.
Her name is Caitlin Clark.
Dan Zaksheske is a reporter for OutKick.