Sellouts everywhere: The Caitlin Clark craze arrives in Minnesota
The Caitlin Clark Effect is very, very real. Where Clark and the No. 6 Iowa Hawkeyes go, fans follow and fill arenas.
The Hawkeyes have played 28 games and nearly all of them have been sold out. Playing inside Williams Arena in Minneapolis on Wednesday will be no different as the University of Minnesota expects a capacity crowd of 14,625 fans for the 8 p.m. start.
Iowa has only played five games in front of fewer than 12,000 fans this season. Three of them were at a neutral site during an early season tournament and the other two were sold out at the smaller arenas of Rutgers and Northern Iowa.
- 14,998 vs. Illinois
- 17,222 at Indiana
- 14,998 vs. Michigan
- 15,042 at Nebraska
- 14,998 vs. Penn State
- 17,950 at Maryland
- 14,998 vs. Northwestern
- 18,660 at Ohio State
- 14,998 vs. Wisconsin
- 14,998 vs. Indiana
- 14,876 at Purdue
- 8,000 at Rutgers
- 14,998 vs. Michigan State
- 14,998 vs. Minnesota
- 14,998 vs. Loyola-Chicago
- 14,786 vs. Cleveland State
- 12,252 at Wisconsin
- 14,267 at Iowa State
- 14,998 vs. Bowling Green
- 3,007 vs. Kansas State (neutral site)
- 4,257 vs. Florida Gulf Coast (neutral site)
- 3,313 vs. Purdue FW (neutral site)
- 14,998 vs. Drake
- 14,998 vs. Kansas State
- 6,790 at Northern Iowa
- 15,196 at Virginia Tech
- 14,998 vs. Fairleigh Dickinson
For context, Iowa led the nation in games played with more than 13,000 fans in attendance last season, and they did it eight times. They've nearly tripled that in 2023-24.
Before selling out six games at Carver-Hawkeye Arena last season, Iowa women's basketball games had only sold out at home twice before, once in 1985 and the other in 1988.
Clark and Iowa will have Minnesota rocking Wednesday night, and local fans won't have to wait long to see her in Minneapolis again as the Big Ten Women's Basketball Tournament, which is being held at Target Center in Minneapolis, is set for March 6-10.
And, yes... that, too, is sold out.
© Julia Hansen/Iowa City Press-Citizen / USA TODAY NETWORK
