The National Championship Game within the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament between the UConn Huskies and South Carolina Gamecocks averaged 8.5 million viewers on ABC, marking the third most-watched iteration of the game on ESPN platforms. The game was down 55% compared to last year when South Carolina won the national championship with a victory over Iowa and averaged 18.9 million viewers. Furthermore, the contest was down by 14% from the tilt between LSU and Iowa from two years ago. Viewership for the UConn-South Carolina game, which ended in a victory for Paige Bueckers and the Huskies, peaked with 9.8 million viewers, according to fast national data from Nielsen Media Research. Full numbers for the game will become available on Tuesday.
ESPN platforms have presented the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament since 1996, and the company agreed to a new eight-year media rights deal last January that includes expanded championship coverage surrounding the sport. The company presented an alternate broadcast featuring WNBA legends Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi on ESPN that averaged 703,000 viewers on the night as well. As a whole, the audience for the game was up 75% from the same matchup in 2022 when the two teams faced off on ESPN. The company started broadcasting the tournament National Championship Game live on ABC for the first time in 2023.
The UConn victory caps off the third most-viewed NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball Tournament on ESPN platforms since the company acquired exclusive rights for the proceedings in 1996. Preliminary audiences for the tournament were also up 22% from two years ago, and the company registered 8.5 billion minutes consumed for all of the tournament action.
An average of 3.9 million viewers tuned into Final Four action on ESPN, representing the third most-watched occurrence of the round in history. Even so, the viewership metric was down 64% from the previous year when the round averaged approximately 10.8 million viewers. March Madness games on ESPN platforms last year averaged 2.2 million viewers, which was up 121% from the 2023 edition of the tournament. Final viewership data for this year’s tournament has not yet been released, but preliminary audiences are currently up by 22% from two years ago.
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