Caitlin Clark and Iowa headlined a milestone viewership day for women’s college basketball.
Monday’s Iowa-West Virginia NCAA women’s basketball tournament second round game averaged a 2.7 rating and 4.90 million viewers on ESPN, marking easily the most-watched women’s tournament game outside of the Final Four. The previous high was set two days earlier by Iowa’s first round win over Holy Cross on ABC (3.23M).
Though Iowa’s win was by far the most-watched, it was not the only game to deliver a milestone audience. UConn-Syracuse led in with 2.05 million, trailing only the two Iowa games as the most-watched first or second round women’s tournament game on record. Overall, ESPN averaged 2.25 million for its five women’s games on Monday, up 180% from last year. The eight women’s games across ESPN and ESPN2 were the most-watched sportscasts of the day. More details on the numbers can be found in the preceding link.
Outside of the women’s tournament, the top sportscast of the day was a Sixers-Kings NBA regular season game on NBA TV at 261,000, preceded by the Hawks’ comeback win over the Celtics at 256,000. Miami Open tennis topped out at 243,000 for Ben Shelton’s loss to Lorenzo Muscetti.
Shohei Ohtani’s press conference to address the gambling-related scandal involving his former interpreter averaged 126,000 on MLB Network.
Monday, March 25 sports ratings
Updated chart:
Original chart below:
