The Athletic has live coverage of the Iowa vs. South Carolina to women national championship game.
Another women’s basketball game in Iowa, another new record for the sport when it comes to viewership.
Iowa’s 71-69 win over UConn on Friday night in Cleveland set a new record for the most-watched women’s college basketball game in history. The game was watched by 14.2 million people and reached 17 million viewers. Chad Leistikow of the Des Moines Register first reported the news.
This game topped the previous all-time viewership record, which was set Monday when Iowa won against LSU averaged 12.3 million viewers and reached 16 million viewers.
To put it into perspective. This game tops…
• Every World Series game last year.
• Every NBA Finals game last year.
• Every Daytona 500 since 2013.
• Every Masters final round viewership since 2013.
• All but five CFB games in 2023. https://t.co/i7e3G7DWSK— Richard Deitsch (@richarddeitsch) April 6, 2024
Certainly, Iowa is not alone in viewership. UConn has long been the sport’s viewership standard bearer, and the Huskies’ win in Monday’s other Elite Eight matchup drew 6.7 million viewers, surpassing every title game viewership since 1996 except last year’s championship. Viewership for UConn-USC reached 10.4 million viewers.
The expectation among most people in the sports media industry is that Sunday’s title game between undefeated South Carolina and Iowa will set a new all-time mark. The only Q is how high is it?
When looking at four possible championship game matchups and ranking their viewership potential from highest to lowest, South Carolina vs. Iowa comes in at No. 1 in The Athleticit’s guess Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal said he could see this game hitting 18 million viewers while Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch predicted the game would have 16-17 million viewers and that it would surpass the final of men’s college basketball.
“I think 20 million could be in the game,” Lewis said. “An undefeated team and Caitlin Clark is just the level of the draw right now.”
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(Photo: Gregory Shamus/Getty Images)
