Iowa's NCAA Tournament win over West Virginia most-watched cable show on Monday with 4.9 rating
Women’s college basketball continues to be a boon, not just for fans but the broadcasters delivering the games to millions of homes. And millions of homes were indeed tuned in to the hard fought win for No. 1 seed Iowa over No. 8 seed West Virginia on Monday.
The game turned in a 4.9 rating, according to SportsTVRatings. That means nearly five million American households with a television, at least, were watching the 64-54 win for the Hawkeyes in Caitlin Clark’s final game at Carver-Hawkeye Arena. And the actual number of viewers was likely higher, with the game on at bars and restaurants and multiple people watching the game in one household.
And as was noted on social media, the game was the most-watched cable programming of the day.
It continues a strong postseason trend for women’s college basketball viewership.
On conference championship Sunday for a trio of women’s basketball tournaments — ACC, SEC and Pac-12 — ESPN aired the SEC, ACC and Pac-12 tournament championship games – and viewership skyrocketed.
The SEC championship led the way with 2 million viewers watching LSU take on South Carolina, which was a 126% increase from last year. That followed the ACC title game between Notre Dame and NC State, which drew 1.4 million viewers for a whopping 462% increase from last year’s installment. The night ended with the Pac-12 Championship, which saw USC defeat Stanford. An average of 679,000 fans tuned in, which was up 42% from the 2023 title game.
Each game was the most-watched on ESPN platforms from its respective leagues, as well.
Those figures added to a record day for women’s basketball. Earlier Tuesday, CBS announced the Big Ten championship between Iowa and Nebraska became the most-watched women’s conference tournament game with an average of 3 million viewers tuning in for the overtime thriller.
It was a record weekend for the men’s NCAA Tournament, too
After a hot start through the first round, the NCAA Tournament continues to bring in record viewership numbers.
Saturday’s second-round games averaged 10.8 million viewers across CBS, TBS, TNT and TruTV, CBS Sports and TNT Sports announced. That made it the most watched first day of the Round of 32 in March Madness history as the ratings success carried over from the Round of 64.
With Saturday’s numbers in, the NCAA Tournament is averaging 9 million viewers – the most through the first three days. More than 8 million people tuned in for the first two days, which set a new record for the traditional format which began in 2011. That included the most-watched first round game since 2019 as No. 14 seed Oakland took down Kentucky.
On3’s Nick Schultz contributed to this report.