Caitlin Clark and Iowa topped the three million mark for a second-straight week and came to within a hair of matching a top-ten North Carolina-Duke game the previous night.
Sunday’s Iowa-Nebraska Big Ten Women’s Basketball Tournament final averaged a 1.7 rating and 3.02 million viewers on CBS, trailing only Iowa-Ohio State on FOX the prior week (1.9, 3.39) as the most-watched regular season women’s game since Tennessee-UConn in 1999.
The Hawkeyes’ overtime win, which peaked with 4.45 million viewers, surged four-fold over last year’s Iowa-Ohio State title game on ESPN (0.42, 745K). Ratings and viewership easily surpassed the two subsequent men’s games on CBS, the Drake-Indiana State Missouri Valley Conference title game at a 0.9 and 1.66 million and Michigan State-Indiana at a 1.2 and 2.06 million.
Iowa-Nebraska delivered the fifth-largest audience of the college basketball season (regardless of gender) behind Iowa-Ohio State the previous week and three men’s games: an NFL-inflated Michigan State-Arizona game on Thanksgiving (5.18M) and both Duke-North Carolina games. The second of those Duke-UNC games aired on Saturday, averaging a 1.5 and slightly-higher 3.08 million on ESPN — up 11 and 17 percent respectively from their second matchup last season (1.3, 2.63M).
The final also ranks as the most-watched game of the season on CBS, again regardless of gender, surpassing a Kentucky-Tennessee men’s game the previous day (1.4, 2.61M).
Saturday’s Iowa-Michigan semifinal averaged a 0.6 and 1.08 million on Big Ten Network, nearly tripling Iowa-Maryland last year (380K) and surpassing the previous day’s Iowa-Penn State quarterfinal (0.51, 1.04M) as the most-watched women’s sporting event ever on the network. It also ranks as the second-most watched basketball game of any kind ever on BTN. BTN became Nielsen-rated in 2018.
BTN averaged 361,000 viewers for the full Big Ten Tournament, which included all games except for the opening round on Peacock and the final on CBS — up 141% from last year and a record. That follows the most-watched women’s regular season ever on BTN, with games averaging 101,000 (+46%).
Returning to Sunday’s games, the South Carolina-LSU SEC Tournament final averaged a 1.1 and 1.96 million on ESPN, easily the largest women’s regular season audience on the ESPN networks since UConn-Stanford in 2010. The Gamecocks’ acrimonious win more-than doubled last year’s final (South Carolina-Tennessee: 0.46, 866K) and finished as Sunday’s most-watched sporting event on the ESPN networks, topping an ESPN NBA doubleheader later in the night.
The USC-Stanford Pac-12 Tournament final followed with a 0.8 and 1.44 million, a five-fold increase over Washington State-UCLA on ESPN2 last year (Washington State-UCLA: 0.15, 257K). (Last year’s game not only aired on ESPN2, it overlapped fully with Iowa in the Big Ten final on ESPN.)
The Notre Dame-NC State ACC Tournament final led in with a 0.40 and 679,000 despite overlapping with Iowa-Nebraska, up 54% and 41% respectively from Virginia Tech-Louisville last year (0.26, 480K).
The four “Power Five” women’s conference tournament finals averaged a 1.1 rating and 1.87 million viewers across CBS and ESPN, more-than-triple last year on ESPN and ESPN2 (0.32, 583K).
Viewership for Sunday’s “Power Five” women’s conference tournament finals
