Women’s College Basketball Title Game Averages 18.9 Million Viewers, Biggest Hoops TV Audience — Men’s NCAA and NBA Included — Since 2019

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Nielsen’s official numbers for Sunday’s championship showdown between South Carolina and Iowa was even bigger than the preliminary tally ESPN released earlier

Iowa star Caitlin Clark (r.) may have come up short in the national championship game against South Carolina, but her star power has drawn more viewers to women's sports.
Iowa star Caitlin Clark (r.) may have come up short in the national championship game against South Carolina, but her star power has drawn more viewers to women's sports. (Image credit: Al Bello/Getty Images)

It was even bigger than we thought.

On Tuesday, Nielsen released official ratings data for Sunday's women's college basketball championship game, revealing that South Carolina's victory over Iowa averaged 18.9 million viewers, slightly more than ESPN's preliminary tally released Monday. 

The outsized performance of the ESPN-ABC simulcast made the game not only the biggest women's basketball TV event ever, breaking a one-week-old record of 12.3 million viewers established by Iowa's women's tournament semifinal win over LSU on April 1, it produced the biggest TV audience for hoops of any kind — men’s or women’s, college or pro — since the 2019 men’s college title game. (Nearly 23 million viewers, on average, watched Virginia beat Texas Tech in overtime that year.)

Nielsen

(Image credit: Nielsen)

This year’s women's title game doubled the audience of last year's women's championship matchup between Iowa and LSU, which averaged a previous all-time high 9.915 million viewers.

The NBA has drawn bigger TV audiences, but not for some time. Last year's five-game Finals matchup, featuring the Denver Nuggets beating the Miami Heat in five games, averaged 11.64 million viewers for ABC.

Notably, Monday night's men's college basketball championship game featuring University of Connecticut beating Purdue averaged 14.8 million viewers on CBS. 

The catalyst for the women's games surge in popularity has been Iowa star player Caitlin Clark, who averaged 28.43 points per game this season and drove consumption of women's college basketball to previously unimagined levels.

Clark will now take her talents to the WNBA, which averaged 627,000 viewers for ABC last season, the best performance for the league in 11 years.

Daniel Frankel
Daniel Frankel

Daniel Frankel is the managing editor of Next TV, an internet publishing vertical focused on the business of video streaming. A Los Angeles-based writer and editor who has covered the media and technology industries for more than two decades, Daniel has worked on staff for publications including E! Online, Electronic Media, Mediaweek, Variety, paidContent and GigaOm. You can start living a healthier life with greater wealth and prosperity by following Daniel on Twitter today!