WNBA pivots to airing on League Pass app despite marquee preseason matchups

The GIST: The WNBA saw the Caitlin Clark Effect play out on the court this weekend in a sold-out preseason game between the Indiana Fever and Dallas Wings. But the league’s decision to keep the game — and the popular WNBA Canada preseason game — exclusively available on WNBA League Pass in the U.S. may have been a missed bucket for the league.

The attendance: Clark played in front of a sold-out crowd of over 6.2K fans in Dallas this weekend, while Edmonton hosted 16.6K at Rogers Place for the second annual WNBA Canada game on Saturday. The preseason matchup up north sold out for the second consecutive year after 19.9K fans showed up at Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena last May.

The strategy: In the U.S., both of these games were only available on WNBA League Pass. This was likely an intentional — and perhaps effective — strategy to drive sign-ups to the streaming service. Since most of Clark’s Fever games will air nationally, this was the W’s rare shot to use her fame to draw new subscribers.

• The W wouldn’t be the first to limit viewership to its app. NBC made the same choice when it aired Clark’s record-breaking game exclusively on Peacock. It worked wonders when the streamer did this for the NFL Playoffs, but the NFL already has a massive fandom while the W is still trying to grow the game.

The difficulties: To make matters worse, the League Pass stream ran into some problems, such as missing scores and times on the livestream as well as glitchy game stats on the official WNBA page. The mishaps even prompted fans to step in — after the app incorrectly listed the Chicago Sky game as available to watch, a fan attending the game livestreamed it.

• The fan’s stream garnered 434K total views with a 173.3K viewership peak, which isn’t surprising considering the Sky drafted two of college’s biggest stars: Angel Reese and Kamilla Cardoso. The WNBA pivoted accordingly and has now added the Sky’s upcoming game vs. the New York Liberty to League Pass.

Zooming out: As Clark’s rise continues, the WNBA is going to have to carefully consider how to leverage her popularity as a business opportunity. In the meantime, the W could benefit from leveraging its broadcast partners to help grow its fanbase before pushing its app. Gotta grow the game by showing the game.