South Carolina’s March Madness win over Iowa breaks audience record again with 18.7 million

South Carolina’s NCAA championship victory over Iowa broke viewership records last weekend, as 18.7 million people watched the Gamecocks’ win over Caitlin Clark’s Hawkeyes, which makes it ESPN’s most-watched basketball game – college or professional, men’s or women’s – since 2019.

Sunday’s high-profile game in Cleveland, Ohio, undoubtedly set new benchmarks inside and outside of women’s college basketball, as it was also the most-watched sporting event in outside the Olympic Games or football since 2019.

The game peaked at 24 million viewers as the Gamecocks completed an undefeated season with an 87-75 victory over Clark and his teammates.

“18.7 MILLION” Clark shared on X with a fire emoji on Monday, despite being on the losing end of back-to-back NCAA championship games.

It was Iowa’s third consecutive game to break television viewership records for women’s college hoops.

Caitlin Clark reacted to Monday’s news by tweeting viewership numbers with a fire emoji

South Carolina’s revenge victory over Clark and co. It was also Iowa’s third consecutive game to break television viewership records for women’s college hoops.

The Hawkeyes’ Elite Eight win over LSU was a rematch of last year’s title game that drew a record 9.9 million viewers.

The rematch attracted 12.3 million viewers.

Then came the Final Four matchup with Blueblood UCoon on Friday night. This match brought the record to 14.2 million.

Iowa’s Elite Eight victory over LSU — a rematch of last year’s championship game — drew a record 9.9 million viewers, earlier in the NCAA Tournament.

South Carolina-Iowa viewership has also dominated every World Series game since Game 7 of the 2019 World Series; every NBA Finals game since Game 5 of the 2017 NBA Finals; every Dayton 500 since 2006 and every Masters final round audience since 2001.

This year’s NCAA title game also drew more spectators than all but four college football games in 2023.

Clark now joins the WNBA – the league’s draft is April 15 – and her exit will pose many questions about whether these new NCAA Tournament viewership records will hold up in the March Madness edition of the ‘next year.

Part of that depends on the potential increase in investment from ESPN and Fox Sports and whether the two networks will continue to do what they have done this year and in 2023 by programming women’s basketball on Big Fox.