Iowa Ohio State Caitlin Clark Jan 21, 2024; Columbus, Ohio, USA; Iowa Hawkeyes guard Caitlin Clark (22) shoots between Ohio State Buckeyes guard Taylor Thierry (2) and forward Rebeka Mikulasikova (23) during the NCAA women’s basketball game at Value City Arena.
By Joe Lucia on

NBC drew the largest audience for a regular season women’s college basketball game since 2010 over the weekend. You’ll be shocked to learn Caitlin Clark was involved.

Per a Tuesday release, Ohio State’s overtime win over Clark and Iowa averaged 1.93 million viewers on NBC and Peacock Sunday, the largest audience for a regular season women’s college basketball game since 2010.

The peak audience for the game came during the overtime period, running from 2 p.m. ET to 2:18 p.m. ET, averaging 3.9 million viewers.

The game served as a lead-in to NBC’s broadcast of the Bucs-Lions NFC Divisional Playoff game, which began at 3 p.m. ET.

While viewership for the game paled in comparison to the pair of NFL Divisional games, it towered over every other sporting event of the day, including the Premier League, men’s college basketball, the Australian Open, and both the PGA and LPGA Tours.

The strong viewership for the game is yet another indicator of the strong growth of women’s sports in recent years. The “most-watched regular season women’s college basketball game since 2010” crown was held by a South Carolina-LSU game on ESPN last February, which averaged 1.466 million viewers. A week before that, Fox averaged 1.087 million viewers for a South Carolina-UConn game, which was then the most-watched regular season women’s college basketball game since 2017.

The high water mark for the women’s game was set last April during the NCAA Tournament. LSU’s win over Clark and Iowa in the title game averaged 9.9 million viewers, the most-watched women’s college basketball game on record.

[NBC Sports]

About Joe Lucia

I hate your favorite team. I also sort of hate most of my favorite teams.

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