As compelling Final Fours tip-off, another seminal moment awaits women's game
To truly assess the magnitude of this year’s men’s and women’s Final Fours, don’t merely watch the games. Watch who’s watching the games.
Never before in March Madness lore have viewership data for both events been under such a spotlight. Credit Caitlin Clark and the parade of stars for levitating the women’s game to heights never before seen or imagined, attracting a wide swath of fans that extends far beyond typical NCAA Tournament hoop-heads.
Let’s cut to the chase: If Clark’s Iowa team faces unbeaten South Carolina in a dream national title game, it would almost certainly be the most-watched women’s game in history. Viewership could very well also eclipse that of Monday’s men’s national title game, a feat unimaginable even five years ago.
“If we get the Iowa versus South Carolina rematch for the women’s championship on Sunday afternoon [on ABC], I believe they’ll eclipse 20 million viewers and easily top the men’s final, which this year is on TBS on Monday night,” John Kosner, who led digital media at ESPN from 2003-2017 and is president of media consulting firm Kosner Media, told On3 on Thursday.
“Americans recognize and show up for the big event.”
Final Four viewership could break records
If only the women’s championship were broadcast in primetime, a potential Iowa-South Carolina rematch – the Hawkeyes beat the Gamecocks in last year’s national semifinals – would draw an even larger audience.
Viewership expectations continue to be ratcheted up in the wake of an extraordinary 12.3 million people watching Iowa topple LSU in an Elite Eight game shown on a cable network (ESPN). That number topped even the most ambitious projections for a title game rematch that was a year in the making.
To put it in perspective, more people watched an Iowa women’s basketball game than every World Series game and all but one NBA Finals game in the most recent postseason. Five years ago, a script with that plot would have been tossed out as pure fantasyland.
And had the game been broadcast on ABC or on a simulcast, Bob Thompson, the retired Fox Sports Networks president, said on social media that Iowa-LSU probably would have “easily” exceeded 16 million.
The devil is in the details, of course, and the enduring takeaway transcends the Clark Effect, which is profound and has dramatically elevated the women’s game. Attracting 6.7 million viewers for UConn’s Elite Eight victory over USC was also remarkable. UConn only drew that large of an audience for only one (1995) of its 11 title game victories.
But women’s Final Four could shatter records
It’s convenient to lampoon the men’s game, which is afflicted with a variety of chronic issues. But viewership for the men’s tournament is actually up 4% over last year, averaging 9.4 million viewers across CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV.
The two men’s Elite Eight games on Sunday – Purdue–Tennessee and NC State–Duke – averaged 12.8 million viewers, a 30% increase over last year and the most-watched Elite Eight doubleheader since 2019.
The possibilities are enticing: A UConn-Purdue title game wouldn’t exactly be akin to drinking flat soda. Nor would a UConn-NC State championship, which would cue an incalculable number of four-decade-old clips of Jimmy V running around the court in Albuquerque looking for someone to hug.
That said, make no mistake: The Women’s Final Four is The Show.
In the summer of 2021, Kosner and media consultant Ed Desser authored the NCAA Gender Equity Media & Sponsorship Analysis and projected that the women’s NCAA tournament rights for the next TV deal would be worth between $81 and $112 million annually.
The new deal with ESPN actually values them at $65 million. In contrast, the men’s NCAA Tournament rights are worth $1.1 billion annually beginning next year.
Kosner: “I think we were conservative!”