If nowhere close to last year’s heights, viewership for the NCAA women’s basketball regionals did not fall all the way back to earth.
The NCAA women’s basketball regional finals averaged 2.9 million viewers across the ESPN networks, down more than 50 percent from last year’s record-setting 6.2 million, but up 34% from two years ago and the second-highest average on record.
UCLA-LSU led the way with a tournament-high 3.4 million on ABC Sunday afternoon, marking the third-largest women’s Elite Eight audience on record — behind last year’s titanic 12.2 million for Iowa-LSU and 6.7 million for the UConn-USC game that followed.
The Bruins’ win, which peaked with 4.4 million, actually increased 38% from NC State-Texas in the same window last year (2.47M).
ABC also averaged 3.1 million for South Carolina-Duke, on par with South Carolina-Oregon State last year and the fourth-largest Elite Eight audience on record. Keep in mind last year’s games coincided with the Easter Sunday holiday, which in the out-of-home era is associated with stronger viewership.
The Monday games suffered expectedly steep declines, with UConn-USC at 3.0 million and Texas-TCU at 2.3 million — down 55 and 81 percent respectively from last year’s record-setting doubleheader. Both games nonetheless rank among the most-watched Elite Eight contests on record, the former sixth and the latter ninth.
Beyond the obvious factor — last year’s slate was anchored by the biggest ratings driver in women’s basketball history, Caitlin Clark, facing her chief rival Angel Reese — this year’s headline game was hamstrung by the absence of injured USC star Juju Watkins.
In other action, the regional semifinals averaged 1.7 million, down 30% from last year (2.4M) but the second-highest average for the round. On ABC Saturday, Texas-Tennessee averaged 2.9 million and TCU-Notre Dame 2.5 million — down 58 and 34 percent respectively from Iowa-Colorado (6.9M) and LSU-UCLA (3.8M) last year, but behind only those two games as the most-watched Sweet 16 contests on record.
On cable, UConn-Oklahoma and South Carolina-Maryland averaged 1.9 and 1.7 million respectively on ESPN, ranking eighth and tenth all-time.
The full NCAA women’s basketball tournament is averaging 967,000 viewers per game entering the Final Four, down 31% from last year but up 47% from 2023.
