Iowa, Indiana WBB season finale sold out; flexed to ESPN
It is no secret that Iowa fans love their women’s basketball team. The Hawkeyes have ranked in the top 25 in attendance in each of the last ten seasons, including ranking 5th in the country last season. They sold out their season finale against Michigan, where they defeated the Wolverines to clinch a share of the Big Ten regular season title.
They followed that up with two sellout crowds in the NCAA Tournament against Illinois State and Creighton. At the end of last season, Iowa owned three of the top five largest non-neutral site crowds of the year.
A year later and nothing has changed. Iowa announced today that their season finale at Carver-Hawkeye Arena against currently #4 ranked Indiana has officially sold out. It is the third regular season sellout in school history and the fourth overall sellout in the last two seasons.
So far this season, the Hawkeyes are ahead of last seasons attendance numbers, as they are averaging 10,237 fans per home game. They have eclipsed 10,000 fans in six games, including a season-high 13,843 against Nebraska back on January 28th.
Despite the sellout, Iowa still have two other remaining home games this season against Rutgers (Feb 12) and Wisconsin (Feb 15).
Also worth noting, the game has been moved from its orginal tip time of 3:00pm on ESPN2. The game is now scheduled to air on ESPN at 1:00pm.
“ESPN brings a different respect to our program and that helps with recruiting and fans and everything. I abosolutely believe it changes the way people think about us,” said Caitlin Clark after facing Maryland on ESPN.
By the end of the regular season, the Hawkeyes will have appeared on the ESPN Family of Networks seven times and on FOX/FS1 another three times. In all, 18 of Iowa’s 29 regular season games will be televised.
“It’s pretty tremendous that we get to be on FOX. You know, this is the first year Big Ten women’s basketball has every got to be on FOX,” said Clark after the Nebraska game. “I think it speaks to the style of basketball we play and how fun and exciting we are to watch…I’m not too worried about TV, but at the same time I know it’s really special and I know we’re helping grow the women’s game more and more. I think we deserve to be on that platform.”
