If you are a sports media nerd, Sunday was an interesting day. The dominant sports programming was, of course, the NFL, with the signature game of the day coming at 4:25 p.m. (ET) on Fox featuring the Baltimore Ravens in a must-win situation against the Dallas Cowboys, who are forever the league’s viewership jewel. It made what was airing on ABC in the afternoon particularly notable — a 3 p.m. tipoff of the Connecticut Sun against Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever. The game was Clark’s first postseason appearance — her league’s viewership unicorn.
ESPN and the WNBA have never had an opening-round postseason game with this kind of interest so I was curious how the network would approach it. If you want credit for growing the league, as ESPN management always does, then these are the games where viewers need you to back up the talk. To ESPN’s credit, it did that for the most part Sunday.
The network sent its top WNBA broadcasting crew to Connecticut — Ryan Ruocco, Rebecca Lobo and Holly Rowe — to call the game, and prior to the tip, ABC aired a 30-minute edition of “WNBA Countdown.” That pregame show provides value for viewers, including what is already a significant storyline in this short series: The Fever entered the postseason with a combined 19 playoff…
