Current Events > Women's nat'l championship was most watched basketball game since 2019

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https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/08/sport/south-carolina-iowa-womens-college-basketball-ratings-record-spt/index.html

The ratings record for a womens college basketball game just got shattered again.

Sundays NCAA tournament national title game between undefeated and top overall seed South Carolina and Caitlin Clarks Iowa Hawkeyes averaged 18.7 million viewers, peaking at 24 million, according to preliminary numbers from Nielsen.

South Carolina won its third national title all under head coach Dawn Staley to finish the season 38-0.

With a record-setting audience of 18.7 million viewers, Sundays Iowa-South Carolina title game was a fitting finale to the most-viewed ever NCAA Womens Basketball Tournament, ESPN Chairman Jimmy Pitaro said. These exceptional athletes, coaches and teams captured our attention in unprecedented ways and its incumbent on all of us to keep the incredible momentum going.

ESPN said the NCAA title game was the second most-watched non-Olympic womens sporting event ever on US television after the 2015 Womens World Cup final between the United States and Japan.

It was also the most watched basketball game including NBA and WNBA since 2019, according to ESPN.

Before Sundays championship game, which aired on ABC, Clark and the Hawkeyes were part of the top three most-viewed womens college basketball games of all time: Fridays Final Four win against UConn (14.2 million), their Elite Eight win against LSU (12.3 million) and last years national championship game against LSU (9.9 million).

cool

I feel like these numbers are unsustainable long term.

Nothing against WNCAA basketball, but between two generational talents in the final four and an undefeated South Carolina, I don't know if this is a trend that will continue after Clark and Buckets jump ship to the WNBA.

electricbugs2 posted...

I feel like these numbers are unsustainable long term.

Nothing against WNCAA basketball, but between two generational talents in the final four and an undefeated South Carolina, I don't know if this is a trend that will continue after Clark and Buckets jump ship to the WNBA.

It was Clark. Even the first round game against 16 seed Holy Cross at the time was one of the most watched games. No one gives a damn about a 1 vs 16 seed and no one cares about Holy Cross but the numbers were sky high.

I dont doubt she brought some more eyes to the sport that will stay and the sport has been slowly growing but make no doubt there will be a drop off next year.

Meanwhile team team that plays Indiana next year first game of the season has already shifted their game to an arena with a bigger capacity in anticipation it will carry over into the wnba. We will see how long those eyes stick around in the wnba watching Caitlin. Especially on a team not expected to contend.

I only watched it cause my grandma had it on and she only watched it cause a Carolina team was in it. Even if it was SUB Carolina, it's still something she'd watch lol

archizzy posted...

It was Clark. Even the first round game against 16 seed Holy Cross at the time was one of the most watched games. No one gives a damn about a 1 vs 16 seed and no one cares about Holy Cross but the numbers were sky high.

I dont doubt she brought some more eyes to the sport that will stay and the sport has been slowly growing but make no doubt there will be a drop off next year.

Meanwhile team team that plays Indiana next year first game of the season has already shifted their game to an arena with a bigger capacity in anticipation it will carry over into the wnba. We will see how long those eyes stick around in the wnba watching Caitlin. Especially on a team not expected to contend.

Supposedly Paige Bueckers is coming back for one last run, so there may be another year of decent numbers for UConn, but yeah like I said two generational talents and an undefeated team are going to draw in people who wouldn't watch otherwise.

Its really too bad kobe isn't around to see this. He was a great ambassador to the women's game.

What was the 2019 game? Tell me it was Virginia's championship

BuzzKilljoy posted...

What was the 2019 game? Tell me it was Virginia's championship

It was the Baylor notre dame game. Good game 1 point victory.

BuzzKilljoy posted...

What was the 2019 game? Tell me it was Virginia's championship

As best I can tell, yes. None of the Warriors-Raptors finals got quite that high.