‘The League Has Grown Through Caitlin Clark’ – ESPN Legend Urges WNBA To Use Fever Star’s Popularity To Elevate Other PlayersMohamed Rizvi Sat, November 7, 2026 at 3:07 PM UTC
‘The League Has Grown Through Caitlin Clark’ – ESPN Legend Urges WNBA To Use Fever Star’s Popularity To Elevate Other Players
Caitlin Clark’s place in the WNBA’s growth has been argued over since she entered the league. The 2026 Finals gave that argument a new data point, setting viewership and attendance marks in a series that did not include Clark or the Indiana Fever.
ESPN legend Linda Cohn is the latest to weigh in. In a video, she credited Clark for the WNBA’s rise and argued that the league should keep promoting its other players through Clark’s draw.
Linda Cohn Credits Caitlin Clark After a Finals Played Without Her
The Golden State Valkyries won their first championship in only their second season, beating the Atlanta Dream in seven games. The Fever’s season had ended Oct. 1, when the Las Vegas Aces beat them 94-83 to take two of the three playoff games between the teams.
“The league has grown through Caitlin Clark,” Cohn said. “She may not have been a part of these Finals, and maybe someday she will be. And then of course, the numbers will absolutely explode. Your brain will explode with the numbers there. But these are great numbers, considering she wasn’t on the court.”
According to figures the league released Nov. 4, the series drew an average of 1.88 million viewers across its seven games, up 30 percent from 2025 and the largest Finals audience since 1999. Those averages are Total Audience Delivery figures, which draw on Nielsen Big Data + Panel and on digital data from Adobe Analytics.
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Game 1 averaged 2.1 million with a peak of 3 million, and Game 4 drew 1.9 million, a high for a Finals Game 4. The clinching Game 7 averaged 3.3 million, more than any WNBA postseason game before it and 128 percent above the 2025 clincher, and no WNBA game on cable has drawn more.
The crowds and merchandise sales kept pace. All seven games sold out, and the series set Finals records with 123,553 fans in total and an average of 17,650 a game.
Within two days of Game 7, the Valkyries had set a league record for championship merchandise sales, with sales through WNBAStore.com and league-owned stores running 42 percent above the 30 days after last year’s title.
The gains reached past the Finals. The full postseason averaged 1.49 million viewers, up 27 percent from 2025 and the league’s best since its first season in 1997. Its gate revenue also set a record, more than twice the old mark from 2024, and the league passed that mark by the end of the Semifinals.
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“And these are great numbers,” Cohn said, before turning to the league’s other players. “And this is what the league needs to continue to do: pump up these players through Caitlin Clark, embrace her, pump up these other players, a lot of skill, a lot of talent.”
Cohn’s forecast for a Finals with Clark in it stays untested for now. With the season over, the earliest test would come next year, and this year’s Valkyries-Dream series stands as the mark it would have to clear.
This article originally appeared on Pro Football Network.
Source: Sports
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