For the second-straight year, a UConn epic in the Elite Eight delivered one of ESPN’s best-ever Women’s NCAA Tournament audiences.
Monday’s UConn-NC State NCAA women’s basketball regional final averaged 2.04 million viewers on ESPN, marking the largest audience for any Women’s NCAA Tournament game outside of the Final Four since Duke-UConn in the 2006 Elite Eight (2.24M). Viewership increased as much as 20% from UConn-Baylor in the same Monday night window last year (1.70M, pending revision).
UConn’s double-overtime win delivered the fifth-largest audience ever for the women’s tournament on ESPN, again excluding the Final Four. It trails only the 2006 game, a pair of regional finals in 2004 (Tennessee-Stanford: 2.25M; Minnesota-Duke: 2.05M) and the Tennessee-Duke regional final in 1999 (2.26M).
Abbreviated coverage of the Louisville-Michigan nightcap averaged 1.61 million, up as much as 64% from Arizona-Indiana last year (980K, pending revision).
Shifting to Sunday’s games, Stanford-Texas drew a 0.8 rating and 1.29 million viewers, preceded by South Carolina-Creighton at a 0.6 and 1.07 million. There were no Sunday Elite Eight games last year. The comparable Tuesday night windows averaged a 0.5 and 938,000 (South Carolina-Texas) and a 0.6 and 1.08 million (Louisville-Stanford), with viewership pending revision.
The full women’s Elite Eight averaged 1.5 million viewers, up 29% from last year and the largest audience for the round since 2011.
In other action, UConn-Indiana topped the Sweet 16 slate with a 0.8 and 1.44 million on ESPN Saturday afternoon — down 20% in ratings and at least 8% in viewership from UConn-Iowa on ABC in the same window last year (1.0, 1.56M, pending revision).
Largest Women’s NCAA Tournament audiences on ESPN
Excluding the Final Four
[Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 3.29 a, b; ESPN PR/Twitter 3.29]
