by Jacob Rude
INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana has long been a basketball-crazed state. From preps to pros, there has never been such a thing as too much basketball.
Search the largest high school gymnasiums in America, and 10 of the top 12 are located in Indiana. It’s a list that doesn’t even include the largest gym in the country, a 9,000-seat arena nicknamed the Wigwam that closed in 2016.
In college, the Indiana University women’s basketball team ranked fifth national in total attendance for 2023-24. The men’s team ranked No. 6 nationally. The Notre Dame women’s team averaged over 14,000 fans per game. The Purdue men’s team averaged 14,876 fans per game, ranking No. 10 nationally.
For the NBA, turn on a Pacers’ playoff game and you’ll see as rowdy a fanbase as any that remains in the playoffs. It’s a crowd that, directly or not, got so under Patrick Beverley’s skin, that he started throwing a basketball at them.
The one team, though, that has slipped through the cracks in the state has been the Indiana Fever. Once a team that made three WNBA Finals appearances in seven years — with a banner to boot — the Fever have never reaped the rewards of a state fanatical in its love of basketball.
Since 2017, the Fever have never finished higher than seventh in average attendance in the WNBA, per Across the Timeline. In 2022, a season in which they finished 5-31, they averaged a league-worst 1,775 fans, with rock bottom coming on May 17 against the Atlanta Dream, when they had just 960 fans in attendance.
Even as the team began to turn things around last season, led by No. 1 pick and Rookie of the Year Aliyah Boston, their average of 4,066 fans ranked second-worst in the W, outclassing only the Dream.
Enter Caitlin Clark.
No one has brought more attention to the women’s game in recent years than Clark. As women’s basketball rapidly grows, Clark is the latest pace car helping the league draft to higher heights.
Last season, Caitlin Clark and Iowa ranked No. 2 in the country in attendance, bringing in over 209,972 total fans. The only reason that number isn’t higher is because Iowa’s Carver-Hawkeye Arena can only hold 15,500 fans; it was sold out every home game.
That doesn’t include the 55,000 people who packed Kinnick Stadium to watch an exhibition game. Clark and the Hawkeyes either set or tied the attendance record at all but two games in her final season at Iowa.
Wherever Caitlin Clark goes, fans follow in droves.
So, then, what do you get when you mix a basketball-crazed state with a superstar who spent the last year shattering attendance records?
The signs started showing the moment Clark announced her decision to declare for the WNBA. Roughly 17,000 fans claimed tickets to the 2024 WNBA Draft watch party at Gainbridge Fieldhouse.
The buzz that’s existed around the city and state is unlike any athlete in recent memory. Clark merchandise, from jerseys to shirts to magazines and everything in between, can be found anywhere from a grocery store to a restaurant. In a city long dominated by the Indianapolis Colts and one that has the Pacers in the NBA playoffs, it’s Clark who has been the talk of the town despite not yet having played an official game.
On Thursday, Clark made her long-awaited, even if still unofficial, debut, stepping onto the court at Gainbridge Fieldhouse for the team’s only preseason home game. Greeting her and her teammates were 13,028 fans.
To put it into context, that number is already nearly a record-breaking one for the Fever. According to Across the Timeline, it was the most fans to attend a Fever game in over seven years. The last time the Fever had that many fans in attendance, it was for Hall-of-Famer Tamika Catchings’ final game at the end of the 2016 season.
Thursday’s attendance would rank 12th all-time in single-game attendance for the Fever, including both regular season and postseason. Of the 11 games ahead of it, five were WNBA Finals contests.
For more context, the Las Vegas Aces, who won the WNBA title last season and led the league in average attendance, cleared that figure in just one contest, the lone one they played in T-Mobile Arena. Phoenix, Seattle and Minnesota — who ranked second, third and fourth in average attendance for 2023, respectively — eclipsed that total a combined four times in the regular season.
This was a preseason game. On a Thursday. In early May.
“It was a lot of fun,” Clark said postgame. “I thought they were loud. I thought they were into it. It was fun to see some people in some Iowa stuff and a lot of people in Fever gear. This is a preseason game on a Thursday night and there’s 13,000 people here. I think that just shows what it’s going to be like for us all season and it’s going to help us.
“These are going to be games at home that you’re going to need to win. So, I’m excited for our home opener. I think it’s going to be a packed house, obviously, versus a really great team. It’s pretty incredible, 13,000 at a preseason game is pretty unheard of.”
Clark is in the business of doing the “unheard of.” At this point, she might be the CEO of the company. But it doesn’t make her feats any less of a marvel.
Behind her, Thursday’s game morphed from an exhibition to one that felt much more meaningful. After starting slow and trailing by 15 in the second quarter, the Fever rallied and took the lead in the second half.
Clinging to a three-point advantage in the final seconds, the Fever, backed by a crowd cheering them on like it was the Pacers’ playoff game scheduled for 24 hours later, locked up the Dream defensively as they failed to even get away a clean shot.
That intensity from the fans, who spurred on the team’s comeback, turned a game that will ultimately have no bearing on the team’s record into one that certainly played out like it had real stakes on the line.
“It’s exciting,” head coach Christie Sides said. “I don’t remember a crowd like that all last year. It creates a vibe in there. These are exhibition games. We’re trying to figure our team and figure out how to play but you get caught up in the moment. You get caught up in a home crowd, you don’t want to disappoint our fans, we want to play a certain way, so it’s just really tough.
“I mean, we’ll take it all the time. I will play in front of those fans every night.”
One week from Thursday’s preseason contest, the Fever will have their official home opener when they square off with Sabrina Ionescu and the New York Liberty. Last season, in two games against the Liberty in Gainbridge Fieldhouse, the Fever drew a total of 11,142 fans.
It feels safe to assume Gainbridge Fieldhouse will be close to, if not completely, sold out for that game. And it feels safe to assume that won’t be the last time there is a near sellout.
The state has never needed much of a reason to go mad for basketball. Just a little spark to light the fire. Caitlin Clark, though, is not just a spark. She’s a can of gasoline ready to be dumped on the flickering embers.
The explosion that’s about to follow is going to be the latest “unheard of” for Clark and another chance for Indiana to flex its basketball-loving muscles.
Originally posted on SB Nation