Let’s not bury the lede:
The 2023 NCAA Division-I women’s basketball championship game will air on ABC this year.
It’s a moment long overdue for a championship game that has consistently drawn millions of viewers. Last year’s final between South Carolina and UConn averaged 4.85 million total viewers on ESPN, the most-watched women’s title game since 2004, and the fourth-largest audience to watch a women’s championship since ESPN began airing the tournament in 1996. The game peaked at nearly 6 million viewers.
The switch from cable to network matters even in this era. ABC is one of the country’s five national broadcast networks and is available in all 121 million U.S. TV households. ESPN is in roughly 74 million homes. The 2023 championship game will air from Dallas on April 2 at roughly 3 p.m. ET on ABC. There will be an hour-long pregame show preceding the game. ESPN executives said they are committed to having the title game on ABC in 2024 as well. The company said they have 15 broadcast sponsors and nearly 100 advertisers across various categories for the Final Four.
“I believe it’s a chance to grow the audience,” said Patricia Lowry, who oversees the production of women’s college basketball across all of ESPN’s networks, of the title game being on ABC….
