Last year's NCAA Women's Basketball Championship set an all-time viewership record for a women's game on ESPN. A rematch of that match on Monday night drew an even bigger crowd, albeit two rounds into the tournament.
The University of Iowa's 94-87 victory over LSU averaged 12.3 million viewers on ESPN, making it the most-watched television game ever for a women's basketball game in the United States. The previous record was set more than 40 years ago when CBS aired the 1983 title game featuring USC legend Sheryl Miller, drawing 11.83 million viewers. LSU's 102-85 victory in last year's championship game drew 9.9 million viewers across ABC and ESPN2, an all-time ESPN record.
The Iowa-LSU game was the most-watched program in prime time on Monday, with the biggest program more than doubling its viewership (CBS programming) NCIS 5.9 million times on broadcast networks).
The University of Iowa, whose Caitlin Clark became the NCAA's all-time leading scorer (women's and men's) at the beginning of the season, draws a large audience throughout the tournament. His four games so far have averaged about 6.83 million viewers. LSU is also drawing a lot of attention, with her average viewership for the tournament being 4.73 million.
Monday's game drew the second-most viewers ever for a men's and women's tournament game, behind the 15.14 million viewers who watched North Carolina State's upset of Duke against Duke on CBS on Sunday afternoon.
Heading into this weekend's Final Four, both tournaments have improved TV ratings compared to a year ago. Through three rounds, the women's slot more than doubled viewership on the ESPN network, averaging 1.1 million viewers per game (this does not include Sunday and Monday's Elite 8 matchups). , every match was well above that number). On the men's side, CBS and Warner Bros.' Discovery Sports averaged 9.4 million viewers through Sunday, up 4% from a year ago.