Another college basketball weekend, another monster television viewership performance for Caitlin Clark.
Iowa’s come-from-behind win over Nebraska in the Big Ten Women’s Basketball Tournament final averaged 3.02 million viewers on CBS, making it the most-watched women’s basketball game on CBS since UConn-Tennessee on Jan. 10, 1999. The game peaked with 4.45 million viewers in overtime.
Sunday’s game now is the second-most watched women’s college basketball game this season behind last week’s Iowa-Ohio State on Fox, which drew 3.39 million viewers. It is the third most-watched regular-season women’s college basketball game since 1999.
Two other high-profile women’s games over the weekend also drew tremendous viewership. ESPN drew 1.96 million viewers for the feisty South Carolina and LSU matchup and 1.44 million viewers for USC’s win over Stanford. Sports Media Watch said it was the largest women’s regular-season audience on the ESPN networks since 2010.
Here is something that is mind-blowing for the sports viewership nerds. Duke-Carolina men’s games have long been the standard for regular-season college basketball viewership. Those teams played on Saturday and drew 3.076 million viewers on ESPN. The Iowa-Nebraska game was just a shade under that on Sunday…
