For the first time in history, the NCAA women's basketball final had more viewers than the men's: 18.9 million vs. 14.8 million

By Weston Blasi

Roughly 4 million more people tuned in to watch Caitlin Clark's final college game than did to see UConn repeat as men's champions

For the first time ever, the NCAA women's basketball championship game had better ratings than the men's title game.

UConn's 75-60 win over Purdue in Monday night's men's championship averaged a combined 14.82 million viewers on TBS and TNT (WBD), according to Nielsen - well short of the 18.87 million who watched South Carolina defeat Caitlin Clark and Iowa in Sunday women's final on ABC and ESPN (DIS).

The men's final saw a 4% ratings increase over last year's final between UConn and San Diego State on CBS (14.69 million viewers), which was a record low for the men's tournament final.

The two men's Final Four semifinal games this year averaged 12.8 million viewers, while the two women's Final Four games averaged 10.8 million.

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The NCAA women's tournament this year was full of viewership records. The Elite Eight quarterfinal round, the Final Four and the championship game each set new ratings highs for women's March Madness. The more than 18 million people who watched the South Carolina-Iowa title game not only made the contest the most-watched women's basketball game on record, but also the most-watched basketball game - men's or women's, college or professional - since 2019.

Neither the women's nor men's championship games were in primetime television slots either: The women's final started at 3:00 p.m. Eastern time on Sunday afternoon, while the men's final started at 9:20 p.m. Eastern on Monday evening.

Some rounds of the women's tournament were able to draw more viewers than the men's tournament despite being shown on ESPN when many men's games were on CBS. More Americans have access to major over-the-air networks like CBS than they do cable networks like ESPN - a dynamic exacerbated by the fact that more households than ever are cutting the cord and canceling their traditional cable subscriptions.

The 2024 women's March Madness tournament benefitted from a bevy of stars performing at the highest level. Iowa's Clark, LSU's Angel Reese and UConn's Paige Bueckers are some of the most well-know athletes in all of college sports and captured the attention of millions of fans.

Tournament stars like Clark, Reese and Stanford's Cameron Brink have announced their intention to turn pro and enter the2024 WNBA Draft.

Read on: Here's how much Caitlin Clark and the other top picks in the historic 2024 WNBA Draft will make as pros

The Associated Press contributed.

-Weston Blasi

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04-10-24 1043ET

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