WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, who has always made a point to have a presence in each market that houses a WNBA team, visited Indianapolis on Tuesday night to attend the Fever-Mystics game. For the Fever, it was their final home game of the 2021 regular season inside Bankers Life Fieldhouse, as construction continues for the Fieldhouse of the Future renovation project.

“It’s always great to be here in Indiana, the Hoosier state,”Engelbert said with a smile. “I always love coming here because I know basketball is such a big passion.”

For the WNBA, the passion for the league and its players seems to be at all-time high. Though only six games into a 32-game regular season, it’s safe to say that the league’s 25^th season has started off with a bang, especially in ratings and viewership.

According to Sports Media Watch, the WNBA earned two of its three largest regular season audiences in the past nine years with this year’s opening weekend doubleheader on ABC. In particular, the matchup of Sky-Mystics averaged a 0.39 rating and 611,000 viewers on ABC, marking the league’s largest regular season audience since Lynx-Mercury on the opening weekend of the 2012 season, also on ABC (804K). The previous high was 599,000 for a Wings-Mercury game on ABC last summer.

To add to that, Fever-Liberty who played on Friday night of opening weekend also chipped in 81,000 viewers on NBA TV, as the only other WNBA game on Nielsen-measured TV that weekend.

Last year, despite being in a “bubble” where the games were played without fans, the WNBA was one of the few sports to see its television ratings increase during the pandemic. That trend of growth carried through the playoffs and now into this season.

At halftime of Tuesday’s game, Engelbert spoke with Fever play-by-play announcer Pat Boylan about the current state of the league, including its growth in ratings.

“It’s really a great testament to the quality of play, the level of play and the competition of the rivalries,” Engelbert replied. “What we’re trying to do is create rivalries and household names so that we’re creating content that people want to watch. To have almost 700,000 people watch those first games that weekend is an amazing thing for us, and we want to continue to grow our fan base. We have 33 million fans in total that engaged with us on linear, digital and social. Now, we have to get them into our arenas now that hopefully some of the restrictions will be lifted around COVID.”

One of the ways the league is creating those rivalries and household names is through the new competitive and innovative Commissioner’s Cup. An in-season competition that designates a portion of regular-season games in the first half of the season. All 12 teams will play in 10 Cup games each, 60 total to count toward Cup standings. The standings will help to decide an Eastern Conference team and a Western Conference team to meet in a championship game on August 12 in Phoenix. The Cup prize money totals $500,000.

“It actually was an idea that the players came up with as part of the collective bargaining process. It was an idea that they had seen work over in Europe and over in soccer leagues in Europe. So, we’re really excited for the prize pool and for the competition, and we’re really excited to see it play out this year and to build it over the years.”

As the WNBA’s 25^th season continues, Engelbert stated she is also excited for fans to get engaged as they begin to roll out other activations, including the WNBA’s 25 Greatest Moments, which will be determined during the 2021 season with the moments being ranked from No. 25 through No. 1 and unveiled during the second half of the season and the playoffs.

If you ask any Fever fans, they would be quick to say that Fever legend and current general manager Tamika Catchings should be included in a few of those top 25 moments, including her recent enshrinement into the Naismith Hall of Fame.

“I mean, she’s just the greatest of all time,” Engelbert replied when asked about Catchings’ recent Hall of Fame recognition. “I think you look at her accolades, she’s got a long list of those, her speech at the Naismith Hall of Fame enshrinement was amazing. You are lucky to have her here in Indiana, and we look forward to even greater things from her as the general manager of the Fever. So really wish her the best of luck in that and just so blessed to have to Tamika in our league.”