Final 12 months’s NCAA ladies’s basketball championship set an all-time scores report for a ladies’s recreation on ESPN. A rematch of that recreation — albeit two rounds earlier within the match — on Monday evening drew an excellent greater crowd.
Iowa’s 94-87 victory over LSU averaged 12.3 million viewers for ESPN, the most important TV viewers ever for a ladies’s basketball recreation in america. The earlier report was set greater than 40 years in the past, when CBS’ broadcast of the 1983 title recreation — that includes USC legend Cheryl Miller — drew 11.83 million individuals. LSU’s 102-85 win in final 12 months’s championship recreation was the earlier ESPN report, drawing 9.9 million viewers throughout ABC and ESPN2.
The Iowa-LSU recreation was by far essentially the most watched present in primetime Monday, greater than doubling the viewers for the largest program (CBS’ NCIS at 5.9 million) on the published networks.
Monday’s late recreation, Connecticut’s 80-73 win over USC, additionally topped all broadcast reveals with about 6.7 million viewers. Sunday afternoon, South Carolina and Oregon State averaged 3.1 million viewers on ABC, whereas North Carolina State and Texas introduced in 2.5 million. Collectively they’re 4 of the 5 greatest ladies’s Elite Eight video games ever, and the averaged of 6.2 million for the spherical is up 184 % over final 12 months.
Iowa, whose Caitlin Clark grew to become the NCAA’s all-time main scorer (ladies’s and males’s) earlier within the season, has been drawing enormous viewership all through the match; its 4 video games up to now have averaged about 6.83 million viewers. LSU has additionally been a powerful draw, averaging 4.73 million viewers for its match run.
Monday’s recreation had the second greatest viewers for any recreation within the males’s and ladies’s match up to now, behind solely the 15.14 million viewers for the North Carolina State males’s upset of Duke on CBS Sunday afternoon.
Heading into this weekend’s Ultimate Fours, each tournaments have posted improved TV viewership in comparison with a 12 months in the past. Via three rounds, the ladies’s bracket has greater than doubled its viewers on the ESPN networks, averaging 1.1 million viewers for all video games (that doesn’t embrace the Elite Eight matchups Sunday and Monday). On the lads’s aspect, CBS and Warner Bros. Discovery Sports activities have averaged 9.4 million viewers by Sunday, a 4 % enchancment 12 months to 12 months.
April 2, 4:28 p.m. Up to date with viewer figures for the three different NCAA ladies’s Elite Eight video games.