Putting some numbers to the 'Caitlin Clark Effect'

Throughout the buildup to her historic feat, Caitlin Clark’s generational talent brought more eyeballs to broadcasts, fans to arenas and all-around attention to the game. Leading the country in scoring and assists this season, Clark has been described as a “combination of Steph Curry and Pete Maravich,” superstars from different eras in the men’s game. A dynamic scorer with artistic creativity on the court, Clark passed Maravich’s all-time scoring record (3,667 points),

Clark is the first Division I player to top 3,000 points, 1,000 assists and 800 rebounds. She's also the first Division I player to record 3,000 points and 1,000 assists in a career. She has 59 career games with at least 25 points, five assists and five rebounds — an NCAA record.

The attendance numbers speak for themselves.

Before the 2023-24 season even officially started, Iowa broke the women’s basketball all-time attendance record for a single game with 55,646 on hand for its exhibition game against DePaul in Kinnick Stadium, home to Iowa’s football team.

Seventeen of Iowa women’s basketball’s 19 all-time sellout crowds inside Carver-Hawkeye Arena have occurred during the past three seasons, with the other two coming in 1985 and 1988.

Away from Iowa City, the Hawkeyes have helped sell out or break an attendance record in 30 of 32 games this season. The lone exceptions? The first round and the championship game of the Gulf Coast Showcase on a neutral court in Florida in November.

On average, schools that have hosted Iowa have seen an attendance increase over 150% compared with their other home games, the AP reported.

This season, Iowa faced sold-out road crowds at Northern Iowa (first time in school history), Iowa State, Wisconsin (program attendance record), Rutgers (first since 2006), Purdue (fourth sellout in program history), Ohio State, Northwestern (first time in program history), Maryland (first since 2016) and Nebraska (first in program history).

Vivid Seats released data recently showing that the top five most in-demand NCAA women’s games this year have featured Iowa, the average price of tickets for the Hawkeyes since Clark joined the team in 2020 is up 224%, and the average distance traveled by a fan to watch Iowa play is up 34% from last season.

Clark’s impact has amplified an already upward trend of fan interest in women’s basketball.

The total attendance record for Division I women’s basketball was broken in the 2022-23 season at 8,784,401, which surpassed the previous record by more than 150,000. At the 2023 NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Championship, a tournament-record 357,542 fans attended. This was capped by a sellout crowd of 19,482 at the championship game between Iowa and LSU.

“The spotlight she has put on this sport is amazing,” Northwestern senior captain Jasmine McWilliams said. “Going to the Elite Eight, Final Four, all that last year was first of all great for the Big Ten and showcasing how great our teams are here, but also just showing how great women's basketball is. And the fact that she's selling out all these stadiums everywhere she goes is amazing.”

It’s no coincidence that these historic numbers also included Clark setting the record for the most points in an NCAA tournament (191). She also broke the tournament record for the most made 3-pointers (32)

his year, Iowa has played games on NBC, Fox and ESPN. An overtime loss at Ohio State on NBC averaged 1.93 million viewers across the network and Peacock, peaking at 3.9 million during overtime. It was the most watched regular-season women’s basketball game on any network since 2010.

Again, Clark’s impact is significant, but those viewership numbers are not a complete outlier. The battle between then-No. 9 LSU and No. 1 South Carolina in late January drew 1.56 million viewers, besting the NBA’s Boston Celtics-Miami Heat matchup in the same window. On Super Bowl Sunday, Iowa-Nebraska drew 1.77 million viewers on Fox - a network record for the sport - while South Carolina-UConn averaged 1.05 million viewers on ESPN. The sport’s rising viewership numbers made it a coveted part of ESPN’s new eight-year media rights deal with the NCAA for 40 championships. With the significant increase in value of the new agreement, NCAA members will explore revenue distribution units for the women’s basketball tournament.