Caitlin Clark & Indiana Fever players thrilled over making history with WNBA’s inaugural charter flights
The WNBA announced it’s implementing charter flights for all teams starting this season. It has been a long-running issue between the league and the WNBA players. Players have wanted charter flights over commercial ones while the league said it couldn’t afford the expense and argued charter flights were not part of the collective bargaining agreement between the players and the league.
That’s changing now. Caitlin Clark and her Indiana Fever are the first to enjoy the new service. In a video posted to social media, they can be seen enjoying the spacious plane as they prepared for their trip to the Connecticut Sun to open the WNBA season.
The players have their own rows. The chairs are first-class and large. Clark was in the first row with extra legroom for the 1 hour, 56-minute flight from Indianapolis, Indiana, to the Hartford area in Uncasville, Connecticut.
ESPN going all out for Caitlin Clark’s WNBA debut
Many are expected to tune in for Caitlin Clark’s regular season debut at the pro level on Tuesday. The game will air on ESPN 2, and the network is pulling out all the stops to broadcast the game between the Indiana Fever and Connecticut Sun
The broadcast will be a WNBA Finals-like production, according to the network. ESPN will have multiple camera angles not usually used for WNBA broadcasts. It will install cameras above and below the rim.
It will also mic up multiple players and use multiple handheld roving cameras. The broadcast and ESPN+ will have multiple viewing options available digitally on demand during the game as well. The game will air on national TV on ESPN2. It will also be available to stream on ESPN+ and Disney+.
The game will also air in Spanish on ESPN Deportes. ESPN will put its top WNBA team on the call for the English broadcast with Ryan Ruoco as the play-by-play announcer, Rebecca Lobo as the color commentator and Holly Rowe on the sidelines.Expand Tweet
WNBA Countdown will be the pregame show on ESPN2 and will air 30 minutes before tipoff. The show will be hosted by LaChina Robinson alongside Monica McNutt and Carolyn Peck. The game will be followed by the Phoenix Mercury taking on the defending champion Las Vegas Aces on ESPN2.
Amazon Prime will stream Clark’s second game as the Fever take on the New York Liberty. The game will be the home debut for Clark.
Prime is also adding extra features to its broadcast. They will have a pregame, halftime and postgame show hosted by LaChina Robinson as part of the coverage. Clark is causing the league’s broadcast partners to add more resources to their coverage of the women’s professional league.
