The WNBA has seen a major decline in attendance and viewership since late May. Television viewership has decreased by a staggering 55%. Viewership of the WNBA All-Star game declined 36% over the 2024 game. Ticket sales have dropped significantly. What happened in late May? Caitlin Clark went down with an injury. While critics of the league opine that the league can’t survive without Clark, there is much more going on than just her injury.
When Clark injured her quad in a game against the New York Liberty on May 24, it dealt a blow to the Indiana Fever and the league as a whole. The WNBA, though, is more than just a Caitlin Clark league. The problems run much deeper than just her absence. Injuries to star players have plagued the league all season. Clark was just the most visible of those stars.
Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers, Breanna Stewart, Cameron Brink, Kamilla Cardoso, Jonquel Jones, Rhyne Howard, Brittney Sykes, A’ja Wilson, Satou Sabally, and Arike Ogunbowale have all missed significant time this year. While that is not a comprehensive list, it does indicate the impact the high-profile injuries this season have had on the WNBA product. Along with Clark, those are a lot of the most marketable stars the league has to offer, all sitting out games.
WNBA rookies are at the highest risk of injury due to the league’s schedule. After playing between 31 and 42 games during the NCAA season, players are drafted about one week after the championship game. WNBA training camps start about 12 days after the draft. Two weeks later, the league’s brief preseason begins, and then players go straight into the 44-game WNBA regular season. If their team makes it to the WNBA championship, their season could end two weeks before the next NCAA basketball season starts. That is essentially playing an entire year of basketball without any offseason.
That is not the only issue with the schedule. In 2025, the average time between WNBA games is 1.3 days shorter than it was just four seasons ago, so players are getting less rest between games. This, too, can lead to more injuries, and if a player is already injured, they are likely to miss more games with the tighter schedule. If those players are stars like Clark, Reese, Wilson, Stewart, Brink, and Bueckers, that leads to lost ticket sales and TV ratings.
Another issue that has developed during the last two seasons pertains to the refereeing. Fans, coaches, and players have all complained about the increase in unnecessary physicality that referees have allowed during that timeframe. Several hard and flagrant fouls have led to retaliation and eventually to fights.
League referees need to crack down on the physicality earlier in games, and league officials need to increase fines for flagrant fouls and ejections to protect player health. Doing so also makes their product more presentable to younger viewers and deters fan aggression in the stands towards players, refs, and other fans.
Fans of the league can’t talk about Clark without talking about the rivalry with Reese. The rivalry dates back to college and has been featured prominently on television, sports talk radio, and the internet. So, imagine how the league’s brightest spotlight has dimmed with both Clark and Reese missing time, including the Chicago Sky-Indiana Fever matchup last Sunday. Clark also missed the June 7th meeting between the two teams. It is only a rivalry if the rivals play.
Another problem with this “rivalry” has been its one-sidedness. This season, the Fever have won the three matchups by 35 points, 27 points, and 15 points, respectively. The Fever came out on top in four of the five 2024 matchups as well. If you look at the two teams’ records since Clark and Reese entered the league, neither is great. The Fever are just above .500 at 34-32, while the Sky are 20-45. The physicality of the games has not done the league any favors, either. Is this really the “rivalry” that the WNBA wants to focus on?
The WNBA is a league full of highly marketable stars. It is time for the league to market itself that way. It is time to see the focus spread out more league-wide, instead of having such a narrow spotlight at times. Players like Sabrina Ionescu, Kelsey Plum, Arike Ogunbowale, and Jonquel Jones don’t seem to get the publicity that stars of their caliber should. Clark and Reese are talented young players, but they have only played a season and a half of WNBA basketball. Too much has been placed on their shoulders. They may eventually carry the league into the future, but they are not quite there yet.
The most public issue, though, is player salaries. Players at the All-Star game wore t-shirts that read “Pay Us What You Owe Us” to voice their frustration over the issue. More than 50% of WNBA players participate in a second league, often overseas, during the off-season to pay the bills. Playing two seasons per year, again, opens players up to more injuries.
Playing overseas is not always safe either. Brittney Griner was jailed in Russia for medical marijuana possession (THC vape pen). Nika Muhl, Brionna Jones, Betnijah Laney-Hamilton, and other WNBA players have sustained injuries while supplementing their income abroad.
Many of the WNBA’s current issues could have been prevented at the league’s inception. For instance, only four teams have built practice facilities, while the rest of the league still utilizes public rec centers and gyms. Other problems, like the condensed schedule, have developed more recently. All are fixable, though.
The league is still on pace to be sustainably profitable quicker than the NBA was when it was founded in 1949. It is time for the NBA Board of Governors and the WNBA brass to sit down and hammer out the details to make the necessary changes, and it is time to pay WNBA players a more suitable wage.
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