Caitlin Clark and her Iowa Hawkeyes defeated the UConn Huskies in the Final 4 of the Women’s NCAA Tournament Friday night in Cleveland.
It came with a controversial ending via an offensive foul call against UConn. Meanwhile, Clark did not have her typically dominating performance. The record-breaking guard shot just 7-of-18 from the field, including 3-of-11 from three-point range. She also turned the ball over four times in the 71-69 Iowa win.
As has been the case pretty much all tournament long, Clark and the women’s tourney has been more popular than the men’s iteration. It really is some shocking stuff.
Iowa’s Round of 32 win over West Virginia drew a 4.9 million viewers, making it one of the most-watched games in women’s college baketball history outside of the National Championship.
It also must be noted that the women’s Sweet 16 averaged 2.4 million viewers. That’s a 96% increase from a year ago.
We now have more information on Friday night’s game, and it’s absolutely astounding.
Related: NCAA Tournament television ratings
Iowa-UConn Final 4 game draws average of 14.2 million
That’s an eye-opening number. ESPN also announced on Saturday that it’s the most-watched women’s college basketball game in history. The broadcast peaked at a whopping 17 million viewers.
The list of records this game broke is pretty much endless.
- Most-watched basketball game at any level on ESPN in history.
- Most-watched women’s basketball game at any level in history.
- It beat out every single college football game of last season outside of one.
- ESPN’s most-watched non-football broadcast ever behind a United States World Cup game back in 2014.
Let’s put this into further perspective.
The 2023 NBA Finals between the Denver Nuggets and Miami Heat drew an average of 11.6 million views. The last time an NBA Finals drew better television ratings than the Iowa-UConn game was back in 2019 when the Toronto Raptors defeated the Golden State Warriors.
The Texas Rangers win over the Arizona Diamondbacks in last season’s World Series drew an average television audience of 9.08 million. The last time a World Seriest topped ESPN’s broadcast Friday night was all the way back in 2017 when the Houston Astros defeated the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Say what you want about Caitlin Clark. But she certainly has been a boon for the women’s games. That can’t be debated.