Clark’s final home game against Ohio State averaged 3.39 million viewers on SundayJeffrey Becker/USA TODAY NETWORK
Caitlin Clark on Sunday helped Fox draw the most-watched college regular-season women’s hoops game since 1999, as the Iowa star broke Pete Maravich’s longstanding NCAA career scoring record. Clark’s final home game against Ohio State averaged 3.39 million viewers on Sunday in the 1pm ET window, which is the best regular-season game since Tennessee-UConn drew 3.88 million on a Sunday afternoon in January 1999 (with the benefit of airing after a Jaguars-Jets AFC Divisional Playoff game).
Other superlatives for Ohio State-Iowa:
- Clark’s record-breaker on Sunday is the second-best college hoops game overall this season, men or women, behind only another game with an NFL lead-in -- Arizona-Michigan State on Fox on Thanksgiving with 5.18 million (men’s game).
- Ohio State-Iowa beat out both NBA Opening Night games on TNT this season (2.8 million and 2.7 million), as well as Spurs C Victor Wembanyama’s NBA debut on ESPN on the second night (2.99 million).
- Iowa has now played in the four most-watched women’s games this season to date.
- Games involving Clark have set viewership records now on Fox, ABC, NBC, FS1 and Big Ten Network.
- Ohio State-Iowa also outdrew ABC's Celtics-Warriors on Sunday afternoon by around 383,000 viewers.
Meanwhile, on Sunday, ESPN drew 679,000 viewers for Tennessee-South Carolina, which had to compete for half the game with Ohio State-Iowa. Despite the crossover, that Tennessee-South Carolina game cracked the top five for ESPN’s women’s hoops games this season (the top being 1.56 million for South Carolina-LSU back on Jan. 25, which is also ESPN airwaves’ third-best women’s college hoops game ever). With this being the first season for ESPN without Big Ten rights in close to 30 years, the net did not get a crack at Clark and Iowa during the regular season but will during March Madness.
If Iowa makes a run to the Big Ten Women’s Tournament Final this weekend, there could more records in store, as CBS will carry the conference championship game on broadcast TV for the first time.
Looking to the NCAA Tournament, Clark will likely need a Final Four run to crack all-time women’s hoops records. Iowa-LSU set the record with 9.9 million in the title game last year. Clark would need to draw at least 5.68 million to have a chance at another top five all-time game.
