The viral post showed Chicago celebrating another sell out. People were loud in the replies about WNBA attendance. Some said Angel Reese did that by herself. Others said those big nights only happened because the Indiana Fever and Caitlin Clark were in town. A fan said “Check the dates. The United Center games were for the Fever not for the Sky.” That was the key point. When you look at actual dates and actual gates, the picture becomes clear. Reese is lifting Chicago’s week to week business. Clark is lifting the whole league at once. And both are part of the same 2025 rise in WNBA attendance.
Reese raised the Chicago baseline
We know from August 14, 2025 reports in the Chicago Sun Times that the Sky had sold out more than 40 percent of their home games even though they were 8 24 at the time. Those sell outs included July 27 against the Fever at the United Center and early June home dates at Wintrust that pushed the building to more than 10,300 seats. That is a real jump from 2023 when the Sky were sitting near 7,200 per game. In 2025 they are at 9,073 per game which is about a 25 percent climb in 2 seasons. Sources in that same story said that when Reese missed 7 straight home games with her back, attendance dropped to 7,560. That is almost a 15 percent dip without her. That is what a local star does. She raises the floor and affects WNBA attendance.
A lot of people on social media were not arguing against that. They just did not like the victory laps. One fan commented “She changed their crowd but she did not sell 20,000 by herself.” Another said “LSU fans traveled but so did Clark fans.” Both are fair. Reese brought new people through the doors. She brought more young women. She brought Black fans who liked her LSU story. That matters for a Wednesday Sky versus Mystics game. It matters even more for the sponsors who want to see different faces in the lower bowl.
“She did not fill the arena alone, but the games looked different when she was in the lineup.” said one person on social media.
Clark raised the league ceiling
Now here is where the numbers become hard to ignore. The league as a whole is at 3.15 million fans in 2025. That is up 34 percent from 2024. That is the largest season attendance in WNBA history and it happened with only 13 teams, not 16 like in 2002. A big part of that jump came from teams that moved Fever games to bigger buildings. Chicago did it twice in February 2025, putting Sky versus Fever at the United Center, which seats almost 21,000 compared with 10,400 at Wintrust. Seattle, Phoenix, Dallas and even Connecticut also reported their top 2 crowds of the year when the Fever visited. That is league wide gravity. One player shows up and everybody can make more money that night due to increased WNBA attendance.
This is the part the arguments keep skipping. Reese kept Chicago from falling below 8,000 even when she was hurt. Clark helped the league break the all time attendance mark by August 21 with 2,501,609 fans and still 3 weeks left. That record needed big buildings and sell outs in cities that do not even play Chicago. That is not a local effect. That is a national one.
So the clean read is this. Reese gives the Sky a strong baseline. Clark gives the league a higher ceiling. Paige Bueckers and the Valkyries helped too. The fans in the comments were acting like only 1 of those truths can be real at a time. The data from July and August says otherwise.
