If well short of last year’s record pace, the NCAA women’s basketball tournament is outdrawing all other years dating back to 2009.
The first two rounds of the NCAA women’s basketball tournament have averaged 602,000 viewers per game across the ESPN family of networks, down 26% from the same point last year (812K), but the second-highest average since 2009. (Unlike the men’s tournament, figures for which are sold on a combined window-by-window basis, the women’s tournament is sold on a game-by-game basis.)
(Keep in mind out-of-home viewing was not tracked in Nielsen estimates until 2020 and was not measured in 100% of markets until earlier this year.)
The top game thus far was Monday’s UConn-South Dakota State second round game at 1.7 million viewers, marking the fifth-largest audience on record for the round, but barely a third of the 4.9 million who watched Caitlin Clark-led Iowa edge West Virginia in the same year-ago window. Compared to Louisville-Texas in that window two years ago, viewership more-than-doubled from 783,000.
The USC-Mississippi State nightcap, which was marred by a season-ending injury to Trojans G Juju Watkins, averaged 1.3 million — down 26% from USC-Kansas last year (1.76M) but up 39% from UConn-Baylor two years ago (943K). Oklahoma-Iowa led into the primetime slate with 1.2 million, on par with Tennessee-NC State a year ago.
On Sunday, ABC averaged 1.4 million for Indiana-South Carolina — down 29% from LSU-Middle Tennessee last year (2.0M) and down slightly from Iowa-Georgia two years ago. Michigan-Notre Dame drew 924,000 earlier in the day, down 23% from South Carolina-North Carolina a year ago (1.2M).
The full second round averaged 982,000, trailing only last year (1.4M) as the highest on record for the round. As for the first round, the ESPN networks averaged 367,000 — trailing only last year’s record (469K) as the most-watched opening round since 2013.
The first and second rounds increased 43 and 60 percent respectively from two years ago.
UConn-Arkansas State topped the first round slate with 1.1 million on ABC, the third-largest opening round audience on record and up 6% from UConn-Jackson State in the same year-ago window. USC-UNC Greensboro followed with 889,000, down a whopping 72 percent from Iowa-Holy Cross last year (3.2M).
