It could cost you over $100 to watch Caitlin Clark play a road game. But in Indianapolis, tickets are a bargain.
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Ticket prices to watch WNBA star Caitlin Clark and the Indiana Fever are breaking records. But there's one place where you can see the basketball star play at a big discount — her home arena.
On June 23, when the Fever faced off against the Sky in Chicago, the average ticket price was around $250 — the most expensive average ticket price ever for a WNBA game — according to the ticket resale marketplace TickPick. In comparison, the Fever's home debut in Indianapolis on May 16 cost fans as little as $14 to attend on Ticketmaster.
This is indicative of a larger trend. The Fever have 15 regular season games remaining — nine home and six away. On average, the cheapest home ticket is listed at about $28, per the ticket resale marketplace VividSeats. For the road games, it's $173.
It's not uncommon for star athletes like Clark to drive soaring ticket prices when they play away from home. Some of it comes down to supply and demand. Chicago fans only get two chances to see the Fever play the entire season, while Indianapolis fans have 20 regular season home games to choose from. However, the size of the Fever's home-road price split is much more unusual.
In 2015, for example, the Cleveland Cavaliers had the most expensive road ticket price in the NBA midway through the season: $246 on average. Many attributed this to the "LeBron effect" — fans were willing to spend big to see Cavaliers star LeBron James. However, the team's average home ticket cost even more — $249.
At least three factors — Clark's WNBA growing pains, stadium capacity, and market size — have contributed to this phenomenon, according to Victor Matheson, a sports economist at the College of the Holy Cross.
Matheson said there's one factor that might best explain the Fever's home-road ticket disparity: He said economists call it "diminishing marginal utility."
"Everyone wants to see Clark once, but she is a bit of a novelty in that her fame is quite a bit higher than her skill at this point, so not as many people want to see her a second time," Matheson told Business Insider via email. "That means she is a hot ticket on the road where people are seeing her for the first time, but not as big a draw at home where everyone has now had a chance to see her once."
During her senior season at the University of Iowa in 2023-24, Clark broke the NCAA's scoring record and led her team to the national championship game. She averaged over 31 points and eight assists per game and shot roughly 38% from three-point range. Her sensational play hooked fans — and has been credited for the record-breaking viewership women's college basketball saw last season.
While her popularity has translated over to the WNBA in terms of viewership and attendance, her play hasn't been at quite the same level it was in college. In her rookie season, Clark is averaging roughly 17 points and eight assists per game for the Fever and shooting 33% from three-point range.
However, Matheson said ticket demand for the team's home games could increase as Clark and her team progress this season and in the years to come. The Fever have the WNBA's seventh-best record so far this season among 12 teams.
"As her skill grows and her team improves, she has a real chance to turn from a novelty into a true superstar where fans both at home and away can't get enough of her," Matheson said. "But time will tell."
The limited number of opportunities for road fans to see Clark play isn't the only supply-demand factor that could be impacting ticket prices.
WNBA arenas with more seats can sell more tickets. If two arenas have the same level of ticket demand, the one with more seats could, in theory, have lower ticket prices.
With a maximum seating capacity of nearly 18,000 fans, the Fever's Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis — also home to the NBA's Indiana Pacers — is the fifth biggest arena in the WNBA among its 12 teams, per the sports content platform Sportskeeda. The average capacity of a WNBA arena is about 12,000.
So it's possible the Fever's above-average arena size could be helping to keep home prices in check — and their opponents's smaller arenas could be propping up the prices of the team's road games.
But Matheson said this doesn't tell the whole story. In part, that's because some WNBA teams with smaller seating capacities have ditched their arenas when the Fever came to town so they could accommodate more fans.
"Fever opponents have been frequently moving home games against Clark into larger arenas," Matheson said. "For example, the Washington Mystics moved their June 7 game out of the Entertainment and Sports Arena into 20,000-plus seat Capital One Arena, and sold it out at sky-high prices."
Things tend to cost more in cities like New York than they do in Indianapolis, including ticket prices.
In the NBA, for example, Matheson said ticket prices for New York Knicks home games can be more than $100 more expensive on average than Indiana Pacers home games.
One of the reasons for this is that the Knicks and Pacers have the same number of home games, but New York City's population is nearly 10 times the size of Indianapolis's. Much more demand for similar ticket supply — the Knicks's arena is a bit larger — is among the reasons Knicks tickets tend to cost more than Pacers tickets.
It's possible that, to some degree, Fever home ticket prices have been kept in check by the Indianapolis market. But market size doesn't appear to fully explain the team's home-road ticket disparity.
For example, the New York Liberty have the best record in the WNBA and recently set a home attendance record in a game against the Sky. But the cheapest listed, average ticket price for the Liberty's remaining homes games is about $31 — only slightly higher than the Fever's $28.
If the home ticket prices for a popular WNBA team in a big market aren't much higher than the Fever's, perhaps market size isn't a huge price driver. On the other hand, it's possible that Clark — with her unique level of popularity — would drive the Liberty's home ticket prices well above $31 if she was on the team.
"I would say some, but certainly not all, of the disparity is market size," Matheson said.
Have you figured out a creative way to attend sporting events on a budget? Are you willing to share your story? If so, reach out to this reporter at jzinkula@businessinsider.com.
