Stephen A. explains the "Caitlin Clark effect."
"The Cash Cow": Stephen A. Smith Shares Strong Caitlin Clark Message originally appeared on Athlon Sports.
Last season, the WNBA posted historic attendance and viewership numbers.
The league averaged 9,807 fans at each game, a 48% jump from 2024, attracted a record of more than 54 million viewers across major networks, and total attendance topped 2.35 million, the highest in 22 years.
Those gains were centered in large part around the Indiana Fever and Caitlin Clark.
Yet the league’s momentum has produced messy headlines this month from key stars like Clark and Angel Reese missing time with injury, to ratings drops and even safety incidents regarding sex toys tossed onto the courts.
Despite this, ESPN's Stephen A. Smith reaffirmed to Bill Maher on Friday during an episode of "Real Time with Bill Maher" that Clark is "the cash cow … box office" and argued that when she doesn’t play, "ratings plummet," citing a 36% year-over-year drop in All-Star Weekend viewership amid Clark missing 19 regular-season games plus the All-Star Game and an unscheduled Commissioner's Cup title game.
NEW: Stephen A. Smith says exactly what WNBA players needed to hear about Caitlin Clark.
— The Vigilant Fox 🦊 (@VigilantFox) August 9, 2025
“They didn’t have chartered jets until she arrived. She arrived, they had chartered jets two weeks later, literally.”
“This is a person that everything she touches with women’s basketball… pic.twitter.com/IepZhpi8VB
Why Caitlin Clark is the "Cash Cow" of the WNBA
The 2024 WNBA All-Star Game (with Clark participating) set a record at about 3.44 million viewers; the 2025 All-Star telecast (without Clark) averaged roughly 2.19 million viewers, a decline of about 36%, though still the second-most-watched All-Star in league history.
Nielsen data also showed the league still drawing substantially more viewers in 2025 than pre-Clark seasons and, across 56 nationally televised games this year, the WNBA averaged roughly 794,000 viewers, up 21% from 2024's full-season average.
Off the court, Clark has already driven significant commercial activity.
AP reported a $28 million, eight-year deal with Nike that includes a signature shoe, the largest shoe/endorsement package ever reported for a WNBA player at the time.
The Fever and Pacers Sports & Entertainment also announced a $78 million Indiana Fever sports performance center slated to anchor downtown Indianapolis development, showing the organization's commitment to its franchise star.
Travel and operations also were reshaped, to Smith's point.
The WNBA announced a multiyear commitment to provide charter flight service (a reported $50M commitment announced in May 2024), an infrastructure shift commentators link to the league’s commercial rise.
Why Stephen A.’s Comments Landed and What They Mean
The bottom line is that Clark moves eyeballs, merchandise and sponsorship conversations in ways few players have in modern U.S. team sports.
Smith's points land because the facts back them up.
Clark’s arrival accelerated attention and helped catalyze record attendance, TV peaks and sponsorships. While interest remains strong even when Clark is out, the league as a whole is drawing more eyes largely because of her.
If one player can lift viewership and ticket sales that much, it affects how teams, sponsors and the league allocate resources and negotiate long-term media and sponsorship deals, factors that could play a pivotal role in the upcoming CBA negotiations.
Related: WNBA Team in Line for Punishment After Indiana Fever Game
Related: Lakers President Jeanie Buss Has Unexpected Offer for Indiana Fever’s Sophie Cunningham
This story was originally reported by Athlon Sports on Aug 10, 2025, where it first appeared.
Category: Basketball
