Caitlin Clark’s historic performance in Iowa’s win over Ohio State draws record TV ratings as women’s college hoops audiences continue to grow ahead of March Madness

The largest television audience to watch a regular-season women’s college basketball game tuned in Sunday to watch Caitlin Clark’s record-breaking performance on Sunday.

The Iowa sensation scored 35 points in the Hawkeye’s victory over Ohio State to surpass Pete Maravich and become the NCAA’s all-time leading overall scorer.

Maravich held the record for 54 years and Clark accomplished the feat with a pair of free throws late in the first half.

The game reached its best viewership of 4.42 million at the end of the second half, while the average viewership was 3.39 million.

No regular-season women’s college basketball game had more viewers since the clash between the titans UConn and Tennessee in 1999.

Iowa versus Ohio State was the second most-watched college basketball game of the season, behind Michigan State versus Arizona, which followed an NFL Thanksgiving game on FOX.

The monster rating to watch Clark continues the trend of increasing interest in women’s basketball.

When Iowa played in the national championship game last year against LSU, the game peaked at 12.6 million viewers, a 103 percent increase over the 2022 championship game.

The LSU-Iowa average of 9.9 million viewers was the most-watched women’s college basketball game of all time.

That record is likely to fall in about a month.