Three Indiana Fever players named to 2024 WNBA All-Star game; fan voting was unprecedented
Clark, Boston and Mitchell were named WNBA All-Stars — with the game scheduled for July 20th in Phoenix. The fan voting was unlike anything the league has seen before.
In this week’s episode of The Caitlin Clark Effect, let’s review WNBA All-Star voting for the 2023 season.
A’ja Wilson was the top vote getter with 95,860. Fever rookie Aliyah Boston finished in fourth with 72,294. And Chelsey Gray received the 12th-most votes with 43,165.
Now this year: rookie Caitlin Clark received a league-leading 700,735 fan votes and her Fever teammate, Boston, finished in second with 618,680.
Votes were at an all-time high. Engagement was unlike they’ve ever seen before.
The top 11 players last year received as many votes combined as Clark did this year. And Boston went from 72k to 618k — an 8.5x multiple year over year.
This is one of the many ways Clark is having an impact on the WNBA in less than three months. Countless sellouts, record attendance home and away, and nine of the 10 most-viewed games. Make no mistake, the rookie class has had an impact — but Clark is at the center of it.
This was all announced Tuesday night before the Fever lost to the Aces in front of a sellout crowd (20,366) — the largest ever inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
“It was probably one of the best we've had from like an energy standpoint, like even during warmups,” Clark said after the loss. “The amount of people here just watching warmups, like I feel like that's when I can kind of get a gauge on how good the crowd is or how excited they are about the game.
“Obviously they're always excited, but tonight, it just felt very different. There was just mobs of people watching us warm up and stuff.”
That’s Caitlinomics.
Another example: I had an agent friend who took his father to the game in Vegas. For Clark, obviously. It’s something they were looking forward to. And he said his mom, who’s lived in Iowa for 25 years, voted for Fever players in the All-Star game every single day.
Clearly, she wasn’t the only one.
Clark, Boston (2x All-Star) and Kelsey Mitchell (2x All-Star) become the first Fever trio voted to the game since Tamika Catchings, Anna DeForge and Tammy Sutton-Brown in 2007. It’s even more impressive considering the Fever were 8-12 when votes were due.
“That's crazy, it's awesome,” head coach Christie Sides said. “These guys deserve it. They've been working hard, keep getting better. It just shows the future and what that looks like for the Indiana Fever.”
The WNBA All-Star game will be held at Footprint Center in Phoenix on Saturday, July 20. It’ll air on ABC and what do you bet that it’ll draw a record TV rating?
I’ll take it.
The format of the game is different because it’s an Olympic year. The 12-member team will play 12 WNBA All-Stars.
Like in the NBA, fan vote accounted for 50% of the vote while current players (25%) and a panel of media (25%) made up the other 50%. And that resulted in Clark, Boston, Dearica Hamby and Arike Ogunbowale being voted on the team.
Then the coaches voted to fill the remaining eight roster spots. They each voted for five frontcourt players, three guards and four wildcards — and they were not able to vote for their own players
Clark: “It's cool, obviously, for myself to accomplish this in my rookie year, but I'm just lucky to be a part of it with these two and it's big for our franchise too. I think it just shows the talent we have and slowly just putting that together, and the future is bright.”
Boston: “I think it's special. I think it just goes to show the talent that we have on this team. It’s really amazing to be able to play together as an All-Star, but also I think this is really exciting for Caitlin being a rookie, coming in and just having an impact the way that she does.”
Mitchell: “It's a really, really big thing for our franchise, but I think more importantly, it shows where we are as players and where we aspire to be individually. We put in a lot of hard work and so it feels good to see these two ladies smile about this process and together we can experience it.”
Those numbers are insane. How happy would the league be with double let alone that?