With Caitlin Clark in town, Sun sell out first opener since '03

Caitlin Clark‘s regular-season debut will be a must-see event in the WNBA, but getting into the arena for Tuesday’s game has become notably harder.

The Connecticut Sun announced Monday that their home opener against Clark and the Indiana Fever is a sellout, with 8,910 tickets sold. The Sun said it was their first sellout for a home opener since their first game in Connecticut in 2003.

This kind of interest is becoming the norm around Clark, the former University of Iowa phenom and No. 1 overall pick in this year’s WNBA draft. She helped draw 13,000 fans to her first home game — a preseason contest Thursday against the Atlanta Dream. Her first preseason game, at Dallas, was in front of a sellout crowd.

The curiosity surrounding Clark has some opponents moving games to larger venues to accommodate ticket sales, and a Fever team that hasn’t been to the playoffs since 2016 will now have 36 of its 40 regular-season games on national television, including on Tuesday (7:30 p.m. ET, ESPN2).

Playing in front of a full arena has become the norm for Clark, who has fully embraced her new home city.

“For me, this is the best part of it,” Clark said after Thursday’s game. “You’ve got to go out and compete every single night, and if one night is not good for us, you have an opportunity to come back a couple days later and respond.”

Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.