The NCAA women’s basketball national title game was the third most watched since Nielsen started keeping track of the game in 1989.
Close to 10 million viewers watched as the UCLA women’s basketball team defeated South Carolina for its first NCAA national championship on ABC per Nielsen data, ESPN announced. The audience of 9.9 million is a 16% increase from last year’s championship where Paige Bueckers helped UConn defeat South Carolina.
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The 2024 national championship set the all-time viewership record with 18.9 million watching Caitlin Clark and Iowa losing to South Carolina. That game had four million more viewers than the men’s championship that year.
“I’m all about growing the women’s game,” Clark said back then, “and I’m glad I’ve given something that little girls can scream about at the top of their lungs. I can imagine when I was younger, I was doing the exact same thing watching on TV. It’s pretty fun.”
It was the second most-watched women’s Final Four on record, averaging 6.7 millions viewers across the three games including UConn vs. South Carolina and UCLA vs. Texas in the semifinals on April 3.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Women’s NCAA title ratings: UCLA-South Carolina hits 9.9M, up 16%
