For the first time, the NCAA women’s basketball championship game had a larger audience than the men’s final, with South Carolina-Iowa beating UConn-Purdue by more than 4 million people.
The Gamecocks’ win over the Hawkeyes had an average audience of 18.9 million, while the Huskies’ beatdown of the Boilermakers only garnered 14.8 million people tuning in.
The women’s final was broadcast on a major network, ABC, while the men’s final was broadcast on the cable network TBS.
Purdue-UConn started at 9:20 p.m. ET, while Iowa-South Carolina started at 3 p.m. and ended at 5:30 p.m., compared to the men’s final that almost went to Tuesday.
Interest in watching Caitlin Clark’s final college game skyrocketed as Sunday’s championship game was the most-watched game in the history of women’s college basketball.
Clark and Iowa lost, but drew the largest audience in the history of women’s college basketball.
In Edey’s final college game, he failed to give Purdue its first national championship.
The men’s final featured two number one seeds and popular programs participating in the final.
Purdue’s Zach Edey is one of the biggest names in college basketball, which also gives the game individual star power.
However, the men’s championship game drew 4.1 million fewer average viewers than South Carolina and Iowa.
The record for the most-watched women’s college basketball game has been broken three times in the last 12 months.
First, last year’s LSU-Iowa final was watched by 9.9 million, then the rematch in this year’s Elite Eight drew 12.3 million.
South Carolina-Iowa set a new standard with just 19 million.