Arguably the most anticipated season in WNBA history and certainly the league's most anticipated player debut ever comes Tuesday as former Iowa superstar and all-time college basketball scoring leader Caitlin Clark, perhaps the most popular female athlete in this country, debuts for the Indiana Fever at the Connecticut Sun. It's a 7:30 p.m. ET tip on ESPN2, which is essentially treating it like a WNBA Finals game in terms of coverage.

Women's basketball in the United States has never been more popular than it is now and that's partly thanks to Clark, whose Hawkeyes were an incredible draw both on television and live this past season. The Iowa-South Carolina women's national title game drew an average of 18.9 million viewers. The men's title game with UConn going for the first repeat since 2007 and featuring perhaps the most popular men's NCAA player (and its best one), Purdue's Zach Edey, averaged 14.82 million viewers.

April's WNBA Draft averaged a record 2.446 million viewers, a 307 percent increase over 2023, and it was the most-viewed WNBA telecast since 2000. The Sun have sold out their home opener for the first time since their inaugural game in Connecticut in 2003. That's going to be a common occurrence around the WNBA in 2024. Also get used to seeing Clark and the Fever on television as 36 of their 40 regular-season games will be on national TV. 

The WNBA record for most points scored by a rookie in her debut is from 2008 No. 1 overall pick and all-time great Candace Parker with 34 for the Los Angeles Sparks on 12-for-19 shooting. The previous mark was 25 from Cynthia Cooper-Dyke in 1997 for the Houston Comets. The Fever have the reigning WNBA Rookie of the Year in forward Aliyah Boston, and she scored 15 in her debut last year also against Connecticut. How might Clark fare tonight?

Before you decide on any of your WNBA prop picks, you'll want to see the top picks from NBA expert Matt Severance. He has gone 165-101 in his last 266 NBA picks, returning 24 units of profit. On NBA props, he has hit on 33 of his past 49 for eight units profit. 

How does SportsLine expert Matt Severance handicap Caitlin Clark's scoring prop in Tuesday's Indiana at Connecticut WNBA opener? ... Join SportsLine now to see all model simulations and basketball betting picks from proven experts!