Sunday’s Women’s National Championship Game Drew an Astounding 18.7 Million Viewers For ABC
ABC and ESPN are reaping the rewards of the explosion in popularity of women’s college basketball, and they have Caitlin Clark to thank.
For the third straight game, Clark and Iowa brought in a record-breaking number of viewers, this time as they played South Carolina in the women’s National Championship Game.
The matchup between South Carolina and Iowa on Sunday set a new record with 18.7 million viewers, becoming the most-watched women’s basketball game of all time. That number also made it the most-viewed basketball game of any kind since 2019!
Record-Breaking Viewership
The National Championship game topped out at an astounding 24 million viewers. For context, the game on Sunday topped every NBA Finals and World Series game last season, every round of the Masters since 2013, and all but five college football games last season.
18.7 MILLION 🔥
— Caitlin Clark (@CaitlinClark22) April 8, 2024
Overall, viewership was up 89% over last year’s women’s college basketball championship game and up 285% vs. 2022’s title game.
The Caitlin Clark Effect
In becoming the most-watched women’s college basketball game of all time, Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes broke their own record for the third straight game.
Iowa’s Elite Eight matchup with LSU initially set the record with 12.3 million viewers last Monday. That number was bested by Iowa vs. UConn in the Final Four, which managed to draw 14.2 million viewers. Unlike those games, Sunday’s record-breaking final aired on ABC instead of ESPN.
Nevertheless, with ESPN and Disney investing heavily in women’s college basketball, the numbers over the last two weeks have been a godsend. The question now is whether or not the sport will be able to continue its momentum next year as Clark heads for the WNBA.
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