Over 12 million for Iowa-LSU rematch, all-time record for women’s college hoops
By Jon Lewis
April 2, 2024
Despite taking place in an earlier round and on cable, the much-anticipated rematch of Iowa and LSU not only outperformed their historic national championship meeting a year ago, but set a new all-time mark for women’s college basketball.
Monday’s Iowa-LSU NCAA women’s basketball tournament regional final averaged 12.30 million viewers on ESPN, marking the largest NCAA women’s basketball audience ever recorded by Nielsen. The previous high was 11.83 million for the 1983 USC-Louisiana Tech national championship game on CBS, the first title game appearance by Cheryl Miller.
Viewership increased 24% from last year’s LSU-Iowa national championship game, which aired in a Sunday afternoon window and averaged 9.92 million across ABC and ESPN2.
In addition to setting a high for the women’s tournament, Iowa-LSU ranks as the most-watched basketball game on ESPN since Game 7 of the 2018 NBA Eastern Conference Finals (Cavaliers-Celtics: 13.6M) and the most-watched on cable since the 2022 NCAA men’s national championship on TBS, TNT and truTV (Kansas-North Carolina: 17.05M).
UConn-USC led out with 6.72 million, marking the fourth-largest audience for the women’s tournament dating back to 1995.
April 1, 2024; Albany, NY. Caitlin Clark shoots against LSU guard Hailey Van Lith in the 3rd quarter in the finals of the Albany 2 Regional in the 2024 NCAA Tournament at MVP Arena.