Caitlin Clark didn’t finish her storybook Sunday afternoon in Cleveland, but women’s college basketball did when viewership numbers for the national championship game were released Monday.
South Carolina’s victory over Iowa was seen by an incredible 18.7 million viewers and peaked at 24.7 million. It’s a Increase of 89 percent from the 2023 title game and 285 percent from 2022. ESPN says it’s the mMost watched basketball game (men’s or women’s, university or professional) since 2019.
The interest in Clark’s journey (and the sport in general) is something women’s college basketball has never seen before. Iowa’s 71-69 win over UConn in national semifinal tied 14.2 million viewers and a peak of 17 million viewers. This set a new viewership record for women’s college basketball, which lasted less than 72 hours. Iowa’s victory over LSU in the Elite Eight averaged 12.3 million viewers and peaked at 16 million viewers. The Hawkeyes’ win over Colorado in the Sweet 16 averaged 6.9 million viewers. Iowa’s second-round victory over West Virginia drew 4.9 million viewers to ESPN, which at the time was the third-largest audience for a women’s tournament game in the past 20 years. These were unprecedented figures in women’s football for these rounds.
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There were other epic viewership numbers during the tournament that didn’t involve Iowa and Clark. UConn has long been the standard-bearer of the sport, and the Huskies’ victory over USC in the Elite Eight drew 6.7 million viewers. Excluding last year’s championship game, which averaged a record 9.9 million viewers and peaked at 12.6 million, UConn’s Elite Eight victory this year would have topped all viewers in the title match since 1996.
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South Carolina and Iowa Prove That ‘Given the Opportunity, Women’s Sports Thrive’
To put the South Carolina and Iowa viewership into perspective, the game topped:
- Every World Series game since Game 7 of the 2019 World Series
- Every NBA Finals Game Since Game 5 of the 2017 NBA Finals
- Every Daytona 500 since 2008
- Viewership of each final round of the Masters since 2001
- Everything but four college football games in 2023
Clark is now joining the WNBA — the league’s draft is April 15 — and her exit will undoubtedly lower viewership for next year’s NCAA Tournament. How could they not? However, the millions of new viewers getting a taste of the product will entice some people to stick around in 2025. Then add in increased investment from ESPN and Fox Sports, continuing what they did last year by putting women’s basketball on Big Fox. This tournament was an inflection point for women’s college basketball. The arrow only goes up.
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(Photo: Thien-An Truong/Getty Images)