“The W is more than one player.” Just 6 months back in May, the Minnesota Lynx head coach Cheryl Reeve tweeted this complaint. According to her, the W giving more importance to Caitlin Clark’s preseason debut game over other games, including the Lynx’s game against the Chicago Sky. However, now that Reeve’s Lynx have ended up as runner-ups in the WNBA and broke an attendance record in Game 3, the 58-year-old is all praises for Clark.

Talking about the Lynx’s growing popularity and home support, Reeve on Tuesday, was clear that the ROTY had a hand in it. “When Caitlin Clark announced she was going to enter the draft… The wave of enthusiasm that came from a player that wasn’t even going to play for the Lynx. There was a lot of excitement and momentum for the WNBA… the movement that we’re in now is exciting,” Reeve stated while reflecting on the exceptional support and the subsequent increase in business for the Minnesota-based franchise.

Notably, the Lynx started the WNBA Finale series with a win against the New York Liberty. But the New York-based franchise came back in the second game to level the series. So when the Lynx hosted the Liberty at home for the first time in the WNBA Finale series, there was a lot of tension among fans. And to watch a nail-biting thriller, the followers made it to the Target Center in unexpected numbers (19,521 to be precise), which set a franchise record.

Reeve, despite a loss in the game, had applauded the fans, enumerating she “couldn’t wait for more of those crowds.” The upper bowl of the Target Center was opened for the first time in the post-season this year, and fans stamped their mark of approval by cheering for the home team. Furthermore, at the beginning of the season, the Lynx had around 9,000 fans roughly per night in the Target Center, which was 15% up from 2023 and 20% up from 2022. But this does not mask the fact that Clark really had a hand in the Twin City-based franchise.

The growing Minnesota Lynx market

When the Indiana Fever played against the Lynx on July 14 at the Target Center, it recorded a crowd of 18,978, the then-highest fans in the arena only behind Game 5 of the 2016 WNBA Finals. And that was mostly due to the Fever fans. That night Reeve got to know the strength of Clark-fever. Therefore, just before the team went on the Olympic break, Reeve acknowledged that “the league has been building for a watershed moment and we’re here. Now, you’ve got to take advantage of it.” Plus, she also suggested to her organization to look for other ways to “monetize and capitalize on it.”

The same sentiment was echoed by Mike Grahl and Matt Stanton, who are the Lynx Chief Marketing Officer and Lynx Vice President of Digital, respectively. They agreed that “we have been able to elevate the content we are providing fans through long-form video, vertical video, and personality-based content showcasing that our hoopers have so much more to offer than buckets,” as they spoke to Boardroom on engaging the fans beyond the court. All this ultimately led to more views.

The Lynx’s first game against the Liberty had a record 1.1 million viewership, a 57% improvement on Game 1 from the 2023 Finals. What helped the Lynx’s cause throughout the Finale series was that the games were particularly close, sometimes even extending to the OT. Plus the series extended until Game 5 which was the decider clash. Though the Lynx ended as the runner-up, nonetheless it was a win-win situation in terms of revenue.

In a list released previously, the Lynx were expected to make $85 million in revenue, which is 6 times more than their earnings in 2023- $13.1 million. Thus, their strategies definitely worked and helped them grow. And all this was a result of Clark. Clark brought with her a lot of fans from the NCAA.

The Fever’s revenue was projected to be 889% more than the last year. And this was all a result of the WNBA building it up for Clark, giving her games more importance, at times even more than that for other franchises. Therefore, it is expected that Reeve would have learned her lesson, and going forward, she would never take a jibe at the WNBA ROTY for getting more coverage.