Sunday’s Big Ten championship between Iowa and Nebraska was the most-watched women’s basketball conference tournament game ever on any network.
The game, which aired on CBS at noon ET, delivered an average of 3.021 million viewers. It also peaked with 4.450 million viewers in overtime.
It’s the most-watched women’s college basketball game on CBS in 25 years, and was the most-watched basketball game of the day.
It’s the latest in what has been a season of record-breaking numbers for Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes. Her final regular season game at Iowa brought in 4.42 million viewers on FOX, making it the most-watched women’s college basketball game in FOX Sports history.
Iowa’s previous matchup against Nebraska this year clocked in at 1.77 million viewers on Super Bowl Sunday. And more than one million viewers tuned in to see the Hawkeyes play games against Maryland and Indiana as well.
In total, Iowa has boasted the five most-watched games this season, with January’s LSU vs. South Carolina matchup on ESPN coming in sixth. As of Feb. 28, Iowa and Caitlin Clark had been part of the highest-viewed games on six major networks.
So far this season, women’s college basketball viewership is up 60 percent on all national networks.
The…