Unmatched battle to attract TV viewers without Caitlin Clark

TNT finally released the first TV numbers for Unrivaled, the new professional 3-on-3 women’s basketball league, and they aren’t very good. Sure, TNT tried to spin the numbers as being strong, but the facts state the obvious: no Caitlin Clark means no big audience.

According to TNT PR, the two games on Friday night – the debut games for the new league – averaged about 312,000 viewers across TNT and TruTV.

The company doesn’t intend to beat its own programming, but there’s no way TNT execs are happy about those numbers — despite their social media posts touting “strong ratings.”

Sure, the games took place on a Friday night, which isn’t a great TV slot.

However, a look at the WNBA ratings with Caitlin Clark shows how much Unrivaled struggled without her. Heck, the “Clark Effect” led to WNBA games that didn’t even feature Caitlin drawing an average of 400,000 viewers. The WNBA drew millions of viewers to its championship series, even though Clark’s Indiana Fever had already been eliminated.

The fact that Unrivaled failed to come close to drawing 400,000 viewers — on its debut night, no less — is nothing short of a disaster. Especially since Angel Reese, arguably the second most popular player in women’s basketball, attended Friday’s second game. She plays for the Rose Basketball Club.

The debut of the new women’s professional basketball league, Unrivaled, struggled to attract television viewers without the star power of Caitlin Clark.

(Images)

Keep in mind that before Clark entered the WNBA, the league averaged about 300,000 viewers for games in 2023. That number skyrocketed when Clark entered the league, where her games routinely cracked a million viewers.

The fact that Unrivaled simply reached the 2023 WNBA average on opening night is not a good sign. Usually, start-up leagues do well in their debuts because people are curious to check out a new product. However, ratings often begin to decline in the following weeks.

TNT did not provide ratings for Saturday night, which featured two more games. It will be interesting to see how these games fared, especially matched up against an NFL playoff game.

It’s fair to assume that Saturday’s numbers won’t be any better than Friday’s, which makes the obvious even more obvious: Caitlin Clark is the biggest draw in women’s basketball, and without her, many fans just won’t tune in.