Caitlin Clark did not get her storybook ending Sunday afternoon in Cleveland, but women’s college basketball did when the viewership figures for the national championship game were released Monday.
South Carolina’s win over Iowa was seen by an astonishing 18.7 million viewers and peaked at 24.7 million. That’s an 89 percent increase from the 2023 title game and a 285 percent increase from 2022. ESPN says it is the most-watched basketball game (men’s or women’s, college or pro) since 2019.
The interest in Clark’s journey (and the sport at large) is something women’s college basketball has never seen before. Iowa’s 71-69 win over UConn in the national semifinals drew 14.2 million viewers and peaked at 17 million viewers. That set a new women’s college basketball viewership record, which lasted less than 72 hours. Iowa’s win 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 win over West Virginia drew 4.9 million viewers on ESPN, which at the time was the third-largest audience for any women’s tournament game in the past 20 years. These were previously unheard-of numbers in the women’s game for those rounds.
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