Iowa G Caitlin Clark has “taken the sport to levels never seen before" Zach Boyden-Holmes/USA TODAY NETWORK
No one has “ever seen anything like what we are seeing right now” when it comes to women’s college basketball viewership as Monday’s LSU-Iowa Elite Eight matchup averaged 12.3 million viewers and peaked at 16 million viewers, according to Richard Deitsch of THE ATHLETIC. That “shattered” the previous all-time mark set last year for LSU-Iowa in the national championship, a game that averaged a record 9.9 million viewers and peaked at 12.6 million viewers. UConn’s win over USC in Monday’s other Elite Eight matchup drew 6.7 million viewers, which would have “surpassed every title game viewership since 1996 except for last year’s championship.” Viewership for UConn-USC peaked at 10.4 million viewers. Deitsch noted prior to last year, the previous record for an NCAA women’s basketball title game “in the ESPN era (since 1996)” was 5.68 million viewers for UConn’s title win over Oklahoma in 2002, a game that featured Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi. The previous all-time record for any women’s basketball game prior to last year’s title game was 8.1 million viewers for a Virginia-Stanford national semifinal on CBS in 1992. This year’s Final Four -- undefeated South Carolina vs. N.C. State in the early game followed by Iowa and UConn -- will “undoubtedly shatter last year’s Final Four record.” UConn has historically been the sport’s “standard bearer for women’s basketball viewership” and Iowa G Caitlin Clark has “taken the sport to levels never seen before” (THE ATHLETIC, 4/2).
PRIMETIME ACTION: The HOLLYWOOD REPORTER’s Rick Porter noted the Iowa-LSU game was “by far the most watched show in primetime” Monday, more than “doubling the audience for the biggest program (CBS’ NCIS at 5.9 million) on the broadcast networks.” UConn-USC also “topped all broadcast shows” with about 6.7 million viewers (HOLLYWOOD REPORTER, 4/2). The AP’s Joe Reedy reported LSU-Iowa was “one of the most-viewed games in any sport other than NFL football over the past year.” The game “outdrew all but one of the five games in last year’s NBA Finals, along with the clinching game of last year’s World Series (11.48 million).” It was also the “most-watched men’s or women’s college basketball game ever on ESPN, more than doubling the prior largest audience.” The 2002 women’s national championship game between UConn and Oklahoma had the old mark at 5.68 million. Reedy noted ESPN’s most-watched men’s game was the 2008 regular-season matchup between Duke and North Carolina, which drew 5.61 million (AP, 4/2).
WOMEN'S HOOPS IS ALL ELITE: The NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament Elite 8 round, buoyed by the record-shattering Iowa-LSU number, averaged 6.2 million viewers across ABC and ESPN on Sunday and Monday, up 184% from last year and good enough for the best women’s Elite 8 round ever. Four of the five best Elite 8 games ever also occurred this year. The Sweet 16 averaged 2.45 million viewers across ABC and ESPN on Friday and Saturday, up 96% from 1.25 million across ABC/ESPN/ESPN2 last year. Iowa-Colorado on ABC on Saturday afternoon led that round with a women’s Sweet 16 record 6.87 million viewers. Even that game would have topped every national title game on ESPN from 1996-2022 (Austin Karp, SBJ).
