Fans of women’s college basketball showed up to watch a doubleheader featuring four of the top seven ranked teams in the sport on Sunday. ESPN shared Wednesday that ABC Networks broadcasts between #7 UCONN taking on #4 South Carolina followed by #5 LSU facing off with #3 Texas finished as the third and fourth most-watched regular season women’s college basketball games of all time across ESPN platforms.
The release also notes that ESPN’s College Gameday airing on Sunday ahead of the two contests was the most watched regular season women’s College Gameday since 2010. Sunday’s matchup between the Huskies and Gamecocks on ABC was viewed by 1.8 million viewers, with a peak viewership measured at 2.2 million. The second game of the doubleheader featuring the Tigers and Longhorns was viewed by an average of 1.7 million viewers, with a peak viewership of 2.3 million.
The high viewership numbers precede the expanded coverage announced by ESPN earlier this week where nearly 260 games are slated to be featured across ESPN platforms beginning Wednesday through February 25. Game broadcasts will be made available on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SEC Network, ACC Network, as well as on ESPN+, SEC Network+ and ACCNX on the ESPN App.
This schedule is set to include sixteen of the top twenty-five ranked programs in the country.
Women’s sports, especially women’s collegiate basketball, have been gaining momentum in recent years, including an average of 12.3 million people watching last year’s NCAA women’s championship game between LSU and Iowa. In 2024, the NCAA announced an agreement with ESPN that will cover 40 of its championships throughout the United States with twenty-one of those being women’s events, worth a reported $920 million over eight years.
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