There’s no secret that Caitlin Clark is the most popular player in women’s basketball. Now, TV ratings for her games are driving that point home.
Clark’s Iowa Hawkeyes lost to Big Ten rival Ohio State 100-92 in overtime on Sunday and the game drew an average audience of 1.93 million viewers, which is the most to watch a women’s college basketball regular season game since 2010.
The audience peaked at 3.9 million in the overtime period.
Peacock, NBC’s streaming service, is showing 22 Big Ten women’s games this year, with eight of those featuring Clark and Iowa.
Clark, the presumed No. 1 pick in the upcoming WNBA Draft, had 45 points and seven assists in the game.
Related: Caitlin Clark won’t take a pay cut in the WNBA, but she will be woefully underpaid
NBC Sports got substantial TV ratings all weekend
It was a big weekend overall for NBC Sports. It was announced Monday that the Detroit Lions’ 31-23 win against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers had 40.4 million viewers, and that was the largest audience to watch an NFL Divisional Round game since 1994. That number was for viewers on NBC, NBC Sports Digital, NFL Digital and Peacock.
That record was broken in the Kansas City Chiefs’ 27-24 win over the Buffalo Bills was the most-watched playoff game in history, with 50.393 million viewers.
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