When Caitlin Clark makes her WNBA debut in Connecticut, she’ll do it in front of a sellout crowd.
The Connecticut Sun, who will host the Indiana Fever Tuesday night in the first game of the league’s regular season, announced that tickets at Mohegan Sun Arena have sold out.
It marked the first sellout of the 2024 season and the team’s first sold-out home opener since its inaugural season in 2003. The Sun sold 8,910 tickets for Tuesday night’s game.
It’s just the latest evidence of the “Caitlin Clark effect.” More than 13,000 fans attended Clark’s sole home preseason game last week, breaking the previous preseason record set in 2000.
Clark, the No. 1 overall pick of the WNBA Draft out of the University of Iowa, certainly noticed the large crowd last Thursday.
“It was a lot of fun. 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 are 13,000 people here. I think that just shows what it’s going to be like all season for us,” Clark said after the game.
The Dallas Wings sold out their preseason game against Indiana on May 3, and some teams have moved their home games against the Fever to larger venues to keep up with the demand for tickets. The Fever will play 36 of their 40 games on national TV.
Bally Sports Indiana announced it would carry five Fever games during the upcoming season:
- May 28 vs. Los Angeles Sparks, 7 p.m.
- June 19 vs. Washington Mystics, 7 p.m.
- August 24 at Minnesota Lynx, 8 p.m.
- August 28 vs. Connecticut Sun, 7 p.m.
- September 1 at Dallas Wings, 4 p.m.
Clark scored 21 points in the Fever’s preseason home loss to Dallas and followed it up with a 12-point effort in the home win against Atlanta.
Tuesday marks the second straight year the Fever and Sun will meet to open the regular season. The Sun won last year’s game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse 70-61.
Clark will make her home debut in the regular season on Thursday night, when the Fever host the New York Liberty.