Friday evening’s Closing 4 matchup between Iowa and Connecticut in girls’s faculty basketball drew a record-breaking 14.2 million viewers, setting a brand new excessive for ladies’s faculty basketball viewership simply days after the earlier file was set. ESPN introduced the spectacular numbers on Saturday, revealing that the sport was the most-watched girls’s faculty basketball sport ever on ESPN platforms. This marked a major enhance from the earlier file of 12.3 million viewers set earlier within the week throughout a nationwide championship rematch between Iowa and LSU.
The sport between Iowa and UConn additionally made historical past because the most-viewed faculty occasion ever on ESPN+ and the community’s second-best non-football telecast ever, peaking at 17 million viewers. Caitlin Clark, the star participant for Iowa, scored 21 factors as Iowa defeated Connecticut 71-69 within the Closing 4 sport in Cleveland, main the group to its second-straight nationwide championship sport look. The typical viewership for each the Iowa-UConn matchup and the opposite Closing 4 contest between NC State and South Carolina averaged 10.8 million viewers, making it the most-viewed girls’s nationwide semifinals on file, with a 138% enhance in viewership year-over-year.
Wanting forward, viewers can count on to see excessive viewership for the nationwide championship sport. Final yr’s championship sport between LSU and Iowa drew a median of 9.9 million viewers, making it the most-viewed championship sport on file with a 104% enhance year-over-year. This yr’s nationwide championship sport will characteristic Iowa going through off towards undefeated South Carolina on Saturday at 3 p.m. ET. Surprisingly, the matchup between Iowa and UConn averaged extra viewers than final yr’s World Sequence, which averaged 9.1 million viewers per sport, in addition to the typical viewership for the 2023 NBA Finals, which drew a median of 11.6 million viewers per sport.
In a time the place girls’s sports activities are gaining extra consideration and recognition, the record-breaking viewership for the Closing 4 matchup between Iowa and UConn highlights the rising recognition and assist for ladies’s faculty basketball. The success of this sport, together with the elevated viewership for the nationwide semifinals, demonstrates the sturdy fan base and curiosity in girls’s sports activities. As Iowa prepares to face off towards South Carolina within the nationwide championship sport, all eyes can be on this extremely anticipated matchup to see if it could actually surpass the spectacular viewership numbers set through the Closing 4 video games. The success of those video games is a testomony to the gifted athletes and thrilling competitors in girls’s faculty basketball.