Indiana Fever BOUNCED By The Las Vegas Aces As Fans Continue To Receive Backlash | Don’t @ Me w/ Dan Dakich
Dan reacts to the Indiana Fever’s season coming to a heartbreaking end with a 94-83 loss in Game 3 to the defending champion Las Vegas Aces—and the relentless media excuses that followed. Despite the Fever’s playoff elimination, the sports media mob and WNBA players are still attacking Fever fans. Dan Dakich breaks down the brutal, physical Game 3, terrible officiating, and free throw disparity that left Caitlin Clark bleeding from an uncalled elbow to the mouth while Lexie Hull was hit with a foul on an obvious hook-and-hold. Plus, Dan shreds media pundits like Jemele Hill for defending A’ja Wilson charging at a fan courtside, while calling out Natasha Cloud for once again blasting Fever fans instead of addressing the league’s horrific refereeing and media double standards.
Caitlin Clark’s least-watched playoff game this year still drew a bigger audience than every non-Fever first-round game with publicly reported numbers.
And it was the one fans needed Prime Video to watch.
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Indiana’s Sept. 29 win over the Las Vegas Aces averaged 1.42 million viewers on Amazon’s streaming service, according to Sports Media Watch. The largest reported audience for a first-round game without the Fever was 1.40 million for Golden State’s Game 2 loss to Dallas on ESPN.
KELSEY MITCHELL’S CAITLIN CLARK COMMENTS DESERVE CONTEXT, INCLUDING THE BENEFITS OF ALL THAT ATTENTION
Caitlin Clark’s Prime Video playoff game drew 1.42 million viewers, exceeding every reported non-Fever first-round WNBA audience. (NBAE via Getty Images)
The difference was small, approximately 20,000 viewers. But Clark’s lowest number came on a streaming-exclusive broadcast and still finished ahead of every reported non-Fever audience, including those that aired on network television and cable.
Two nights later, Indiana’s season-ending loss to Las Vegas averaged 2.25 million viewers across USA Network and CNBC, making it the second-most-watched WNBA first-round playoff game ever.
Can you guess who played in the most-watched first-round game ever? Yeah, it was Clark and the Fever against the Connecticut Sun in 2024, which saw Game 2 of their first-round series average 2.54 million viewers on ESPN.
So, across three games, Clark helped deliver one of the biggest first-round audiences in league history and a streaming audience that exceeded every reported non-Fever telecast. That’s a pretty good illustration of what she means to the WNBA.
Reported figures were available for nine of the 10 first-round games. For Dallas–Golden State Game 1, this analysis uses a reported audience of 410,000 on USA Network and does not include CNBC viewers. OutKick requested the combined USA/CNBC total and ESPN2’s Dallas–Golden State Game 3 audience but had not received a response by publication.
Those figures could change which non-Fever game drew the largest audience, though the silence from ESPN could indicate that they aren’t in a hurry to make the numbers public.
Clark, Fever predictably draw massive first-round audiences
Indiana’s three games averaged approximately 1.93 million viewers, compared with 949,000 for the six non-Fever games. That gave Clark’s games an average audience approximately 103% larger than the six other first-round games with reported audience numbers.
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And while networks, start times and streaming distribution varied across all those games, the opening Sunday offered a very clean comparison point.
ABC aired New York–Minnesota and Indiana–Las Vegas on Sept. 27. The Liberty–Lynx opener averaged 1.20 million viewers while the Fever–Aces opener averaged 2.11 million.
Same day. Same network. Approximately 76% more viewers for the Fever.
Caitlin Clark’s final playoff game drew 2.25 million viewers, ranking second in WNBA first-round history behind another Indiana Fever game in 2024. (Getty Images)
There’s also a comparison within Prime Video. Washington–Atlanta’s opener averaged 425,000 viewers.
Angel Reese, who now plays for Atlanta, famously insisted in 2024 that people watch women’s basketball “because of me too.” But on the same streaming platform, Clark’s Fever drew more than three times the audience of Reese’s Dream.
The WNBA has been here before
Last year, I wrote about the Fever’s playoff opener without an injured Clark. Indiana drew 951,000 viewers on ABC, compared with 1.84 million for its opener with Clark the previous year. Both games aired in the same Sunday afternoon slot opposite the NFL.
The 2025 All-Star Game offered another example. With Clark sidelined, ABC averaged 2.19 million viewers, down from roughly 3.4 million in 2024.
Then, with Clark back in 2026, the number jumped back over 3 million.
Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever are the main draw in the WNBA and it isn’t even close. (Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
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There is also evidence that fans will watch the league after Indiana is eliminated. In 2024, I noted that the semifinals were delivering strong audiences, including Liberty–Aces games that outdrew every game of those teams’ championship series the year before.
For the WNBA, the opportunity is to turn fans who arrive for Clark into fans who stay for everybody else. These numbers show there is a long way to go in that department.
The two Fever games on traditional television each drew more than two million viewers. Even Indiana’s streaming-exclusive game edged the biggest reported non-Fever telecast. The six non-Fever games averaged under one million viewers.
The remaining teams now have a chance to make their own case to viewers, with a championship still to be decided. I’ll be interested to see those audiences when they’re available.
The WNBA’s biggest draw is done for the season. Now we find out how many viewers are.