- The men’s final featuring UConn and Purdue drew 14.8 million spectators
- Interest in Caitlin Clark and South Carolina skyrocketed viewership
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For the first time, the NCAA women’s basketball championship game had a larger viewership than the men’s final, with South Carolina-Iowa surpassing UConn-Purdue by more than 4 million people.
The Gamecocks’ win over the Hawkeyes averaged 18.9 million viewers, while the Huskies trouncing the Boilermakers brought in just 14.8 million.
The women’s final aired on major network ABC, while the men’s final was on cable network TBS.
Purdue-UConn started at 9:20 p.m. Eastern time, while Iowa-South Carolina started at 3 p.m. and finished at 5:30 p.m., compared to the men’s final that almost trickled into Tuesday.
Interest in Caitlin Clark’s final college game soared as Sunday’s championship was the most watched game in women’s basketball history.
Clark and Iowa lost, but drew the largest crowd in women’s basketball history
In Edey’s final college game, he didn’t give Purdue its first ever national championship
The men’s finals had two No. 1 seeds and popular programs competing in the finals.
Purdue’s Zach Edey is one of the biggest names in college basketball and also brings individual star power to the game.
Still, the men’s championship game averaged 4.1 million fewer viewers than South Carolina and Iowa.
The record for the most watched women’s college basketball game has been broken three times in the past 12 months.
First last year’s LSU-Iowa final was watched by 9.9 million viewers, then this year’s Elite Eight rematch drew 12.3 million viewers.
South Carolina-Iowa set a new standard with just 19 million residents.