This Sunday’s clash between Caitlin Clark of the Indiana Fever and Angel Reese of the Chicago Sky will mark the third time the WNBA’s two rookie superstars have faced off this season. For Clark and Reese, it will be the fourth meeting this year, including their meeting in the NCAA Tournament, when Clark’s Iowa defeated Reese’s LSU to advance to the Final Four in April.
But just because fans have already seen this matchup doesn’t mean they’re any less excited to see the next chapter of this rivalry.
In fact, Sunday’s game between the Fever and Sky is the most expensive WNBA game of all time, according to TickPick. The online ticket platform said, Assets that the average purchase price for tickets to this game is $271 – more than three times Sky’s average purchase price for home games of $88.
Before Reese and Clark were drafted in April, the cheapest ticket to this game was $49, says Kyle Zorn, content strategy lead at TickPick. Now the cheapest seat costs about five times that.
“It’s crazy,” he said Assets“I’ve never seen two players in one sport impact a league like that. Honestly, it’s very LeBron James-like.”
The “Caitlin Clark Effect”
In 2024, the “Caitlin Clark Effect” has become a tangible economic sensation that has impacted every team, league, brand and network the 22-year-old point guard has touched. In April, the NCAA final between the Iowa Hawkeyes and South Carolina Gamecocks drew 19 million viewers, the highest viewership ever recorded for a women’s college basketball game, and 5 million more than the men’s final between UConn and Purdue the day before, according to Nielsen.
Shortly after being drafted first overall by the Fever in the WNBA Draft, Clark reportedly signed an eight-year, $28 million deal with Nike, a deal that includes a future shoe deal and would be the largest apparel deal of any player in the league. Around the same time, Dick’s Sporting Goods announced it would sell Clark Fever merchandise in all 724 of its stores before she had played a single professional game.
And once she started playing, the phenomenon persisted.
In May, the WNBA recorded its busiest opening month in 26 years and the most-watched season start of all time across all networks. The number of sold-out games in May increased 156% compared to 2023, and occupancy of all WNBA arenas was nearly 95%.
But as captivating as Clark was this season, her star status attracted the most attention—and drove up the awards—when she competed against Reese.
According to TickPick, the ticket price — the price of the cheapest ticket available — for this Sunday’s game is $249. That’s 336% more than the ticket price for their last meeting in Indiana — $57. When Reese and Clark last played each other on June 16, the meeting was the most-watched WNBA game of any network in 23 years, according to CNN, and peaked at 3 million viewers, according to CBS.
One reason for this, according to Zorn, is the market in which the game is being played. The previous two games were both played in Indiana, a far less expensive market than Chicago.
“The breadth of the WNBA has increased significantly with this (draft) class, and these are the two biggest stars of this class that have a very long history,” he said. “It’s the first time this season that Caitlin has come to Chicago, and I think a lot of Chicago fans are rooting for their team, and then people want to see Caitlin, too.”
And they’re not just beating previous WNBA records. The $271 purchase price for Sunday’s game is significantly higher than the average price of Chicago’s male sports franchises. The Chicago Bulls’ average purchase price last season was just $117, while the Bears’ was $201.
Zorn expects demand for the WNBA to continue throughout the summer as long as rumors surrounding the league’s young stars remain hot. It will be interesting to see what happens in September, when the start of the WNBA playoffs coincides with the opening weeks of the NFL season, he said.
“In sports, the storyline obviously matters,” Zorn said. “The more coverage there is, the more people are interested in the sport… I think as long as there is the storyline and there is coverage, there will be demand. I don’t see it slowing down.”
