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NCAA Women’s Basketball Final Draws Record 18.7 Million Viewers
The South Carolina Gamecocks and the Iowa Hawkeyes tip off in the 2024 NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament National Championship at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse on April 7, 2024 in Cleveland, Ohio.
(Bloomberg) -- Sunday’s broadcast of the NCAA women’s college basketball championship between the victorious South Carolina Gamecocks and Iowa Hawkeyes drew a record TV audience of 18.7 million viewers on ABC and ESPN.
The numbers made the finale the most-watched women’s college basketball game ever. It also marked the most-viewed basketball game, pro or college, since the men’s championship in 2019, Walt Disney Co., parent of the networks, said Monday in an email.
The contest, pitting star scorer Caitlin Clark of Iowa against South Carolina’s Kamilla Cardoso, both of whom are turning pro, peaked at 24 million viewers, Disney said. The totals are expected to rise when final Nielsen numbers are released on Tuesday.
South Carolina capped an undefeated season with an 87-75 victory over Iowa.
I am a 1972 alumini of the MBA program (with wife plus son James born there) and remember the Gamecocks Men’s Basketball team as an excellent one, in the last 4 of the national championship and had 2 players in the US Olympic team in Munich. Danny Traylor was the tall star. We have been in my own country South Africa for the intervening period and am now at age 78 living most of the year in Laguna Beach CA where 2 of our children ended up, plus our firstborn living outside San Francisco, all married, 2 grandsons and 1 granddaughter at college, I was thrilled to see the Women’s Gamecocks team win the national championship, the love of the sport still strong in Columbia SC. Go Gamecocks!