Caitlin Clark's season is over, but the crowd-size conversation she fueled this season is still going strong. The Indiana Fever guard drove record viewership for the WNBA all year with her first-round series against the Las Vegas Aces pulling in 2.1 million viewers on ABC.
Those ratings more than doubled last season's opening-round numbers. But after the Aces knocked out Clark's Fever in back-to-back postseasons, the popularity argument didn't end, it just shifted to Angel Reese and the Atlanta Dream.
How Did Atlanta Dream's Playoff Crowd Compare to Caitlin Clark's Sellouts?
When the Dream hosted its WNBA playoffs game against the New York Liberty at State Farm Arena, 9,745 fans showed up. During the regular season, Clark's two visits to that same building each sold out at 17,044.
Critics stacked those numbers side by side almost immediately, accusing the league and the Dream of making the crowd seem bigger by closing off the arena's upper deck.
However, Atlanta pushed back, pointing to logistics as the reason for why the playoff battle failed to sell out. The Dream typically plays at Gateway Center Arena, which holds 3,500. The franchise only announced its postseason move to the 17,000-capacity NBA arena in late August, giving fans barely a month to buy in.
Despite the sparse crowd, Reese and the Dream cruised to a 92-82 victory against the Liberty in their first semifinals meeting on Sunday. They'll look to repeat that performance tomorrow night at home, hopefully in front of an even bigger crowd.
