Caitlin Clark’s rise as one of the most exciting women’s basketball players continues to grow, after it has since been revealed Iowa’s 94-87 win over LSU became the most-watched women’s college basketball game of all time.
The Hawkeyes point-guard put on a 41 point display to beat the Tigers in a rematch of the NCAA Women’s March Madness final from last year, avenging the loss.
Nielsen has revealed that this year’s Elite Eight matchup between Iowa and LSU averaged 12.3 million viewers on ESPN, up by 2.4 million viewers from last year’s final between the two teams.
Moreover, the game on Monday night was one of the most-watched non-NFL games of the past year, even surpassing figures from four of the five NBA Finals games between champions Denver Nuggets and the Miami Heat last June.
Furthermore, the Iowa-LSU game became the most-watched college basketball game ever on ESPN, for both men’s and women’s teams.
Much of this success has been attributed to Clark’s rise as one of the most prolific college basketball players of all time. The 22-year-old has already become the all-time leading scorer in NCAA Division 1 history and once she makes the professional switch to the WNBA is expected to immediately become one of the league’s most marketable players.
The 2024 Women’s NCAA March Madness tournament has garnered as much attention as ever before, with viewing figures on the rise in all aspects.
In the four games Clark has appeared for Iowa during the tournament on ESPN and ABC, the average viewership was 6.83 million.
Following the Iowa-LSU game on Monday, UConn’s win over Southern California became the second-most-watched college game in ESPN history, with an average viewership of 6.7 million.
The 2002 NCAA national championship game between UConn and Oklahoma previously held the title as the most-watched women’s basketball game with 5.7 million viewers tuning in to see women’s basketball legend Sue Bird clinch the national championship.
This was then surpassed only last year in the national championship game between winners LSU over Iowa, which averaged 9.9 million viewers, only for it to be broken again this year as Iowa avenged their final defeat.
