The NCAA women’s basketball final outrated the men’s for the first time ever

For the first time in its 42-year history, the women’s NCAA basketball final outrated the men’s.

For the first time in its 42-year history, more people watched the women’s NCAA basketball final than the men’s. The total number of viewers for Sunday’s women’s national championship game between South Carolina and Iowa was 18.9 million, peaking at 24.1 million in the game’s final 15 minutes, according to Nielsen. It was the most-watched women’s college basketball game ever and doubled the previous year’s 9.9 million viewers. On Monday, the University of Connecticut’s victory over Purdue in the men’s final drew 14.8 million viewers, Nielsen said. That was up a smidge from the 14.7 million who watched last year’s men’s championship game, but fell 4 million viewers short of the women’s final. The biggest reason why the women outrated the men this year: Iowa sensation Caitlin Clark, who scored 30 points in the Hawkeyes’ 87-75 defeat by the undefeated Gamecocks. Clark captivated fans all year, setting records on the court and driving the women’s game to viewership records throughout the regular season and the March Madness tournament. Clark finished the 2023-2024 season as the highest scoring collegiate basketball player in history, outpacing Louisiana State sensation (and future NBA legend and Hall of Famer) Pete Maravich, who had set the previous record in 1970. Clark had been playing with a chip on her shoulder all season after her Hawkeyes lost in the finals the previous year to LSU — a team she and Iowa vanquished earlier in the tournament. She is widely expected to be the top pick in the WNBA draft next week.