Iowa’s stunning win over South Carolina becomes the most-watched college women’s basketball semifinal of all time, with 6.6 million viewers tuning in to Caitlin Clark’s brilliant show.
Iowa’s dramatic win over South Carolina is now the university’s most-watched women’s basketball semifinal of all time, as 6.6 million viewers followed Kaitlin Clark’s 41-point performance.
The Hawkeyes’ 77-73 victory over the defending champions averaged 5.5 million viewers Sports Front Office. This is a staggering 72 percent increase from last year.
What’s more, Friday night’s game was surpassed by the 3.76 million viewers who watched Baylor defeat Stanford in the 2012 Final Four game, which was considered the most-watched women’s semifinal of all time, to date.
The Hawkeyes-Gamecocks match peaked at 6.6 million viewers each Nielsen Fast Nationals.
One of the semi-finals this year, with LSU-Virginia Tech the other, the ratings have surpassed last year’s Iowa-South Carolina women’s national championship game between the Gamecocks and Connecticut, which drew an average of 4.85 million viewers.
Iowa State guard Kaitlin Clark’s 41-point performance against South Carolina drew 6.6 million viewers.
The Hawkeyes narrowly beat the Gamecocks – the defending champions – 77-73 on Friday
And Clark’s impressive 41-point display two days ago nearly eliminated the two most-watched women’s basketball games of all time.
Those two matches were at the Nationals, not the Final Four, as Diana Taurasi, Sue Bird, and Swen Cash participated.
The trio, perhaps the best ever at the college level in the women’s game, drew 5.7 million viewers when Yukon defeated Oklahoma in 2002.
In 2004, Taurasi and her teammates nearly broke that record, as 5.6 million viewers watched the Huskies beat Tennessee in the women’s national championship game.
ESPN’s coverage of LSU’s 79-72 win over Virginia Tech also drew a large television audience, averaging 3.4 million viewers, up 57 percent from last year.
This year’s March Madness Semifinals in the NCAA Women’s Tournament is the most watched women’s basketball game ever on ESPN+.
LSU and Iowa face off on Sunday at 3.30pm. ET in a game that is expected to break all broadcast records.
Meanwhile, this year’s NCAA college women’s basketball tournament continued to outpace the men’s version, with tickets to Final Four games costing seven times more.
LSU’s game against Virginia Tech also drew a huge TV crowd – 3.4 million on average.
