The 2024 draft class brought a lot of new talent to the WNBA. Cameron Brink and Rickea Jackson will be a big part of the Los Angeles Sparks’ future, and Aaliyah Edwards just put together a strong Unrivaled season to build on her rookie year with the Washington Mystics. No players drew more eyes to their respective teams and the WNBA as a whole than Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, though.
Clark and Reese were drafted first and seventh overall, joining the Indiana Fever and Chicago Sky, respectively. Both were named All-Stars in their first WNBA season and broke several records. Clark established herself as a great playmaker and the best young guard in the game. Reese, on the other hand, quickly emerged as a talented rebounder and defender in the frontcourt.
Before the draft, Clark and Reese met in the National Championship game in the 2022-23 season and the Elite Eight in the 2023-24 season. Reese and LSU got the first win, securing the championship, and Clark won the second marque matchup between the two in college.
Fans loved watching Reese and Clark compete in college, and that did not change once they went pro. A matchup between the Fever and the Sky on June 23 was the most-watched game of the regular season. The WNBA quickly realized that featuring Clark and Reese was a great way to attract attention and did not miss the opportunity to showcase their matchups in the 2025 season.
Clark and Reese will meet on the big stage in the 2025 season
The WNBA’s broadcast and streaming schedule was full of pleasant surprises for Fever fans. 41 of the Fever’s 44 regular season games will air on national TV—the most ever for a single team in league history. After a successful offseason that saw the Fever evolve from an exciting young team into a legitimate contender, Indiana is officially one of the teams fans simply cannot miss in the 2025 season.
That is not the only milestone for the Fever, however. The 2025 season will feature “the WNBA’s first-ever primetime WNBA regular-season games on broadcast television,” according to the WNBA’s press release. Two matchups between the Indiana Fever and the Chicago Sky will be on CBS during primetime.
While those games have much more to offer than just Clark and Reese—Kamilla Cardoso and Aliyah Boston are two of the best young bigs in the game, and veterans DeWanna Bonner, Natasha Howard, Ariel Atkins, and Courtney Vandersloot will have massive impacts on their new teams—the league clearly wanted to make the most of Clark’s and Reese’s ability to draw fans.
Those games will very likely be some of the most-anticipated games of the season, and they will now take place in front of a national audience. Simply landing the primetime slot on CBS is already a success for the WNBA, but it could be even greater than that. Those two games could easily set new viewership records. If the games are a success, the WNBA should even be able to claim more coveted slots on national TV.