NCAA Women’s Selection Show reaches second-largest audience in 20 years

Yet more evidence is coming in about the commercial appeal of women’s college basketball.

This year’s women’s NCAA tournament Selection Show on ESPN averaged 1.7 million viewers, according to ESPN PR. That’s good for the second-largest audience the women’s Selection Show has seen since 2005, beat only by last year’s audience of 1.9 million viewers.

Sunday night’s ‘NCAA Women’s Selection Special presented by Capital One’ was the second MOST-WATCHED since ’05 with 1.7M viewers 👀#NCAAWBB pic.twitter.com/ReMyj9PzyR

— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) March 18, 2025

Shattering decades-old viewership records is hardly impressive anymore for women’s college basketball in the post-Caitlin Clark years. This year, ESPN posted its most-watched women’s college basketball season since 2008-09. The network increased viewership by 3% year-over-year, and 41% versus two years ago.

All told, 87 women’s college basketball games across ESPN’s family of networks averaged 280,000 viewers this season, with 15 of those matchups delivering audiences over 500,000 viewers. Games on ESPN averaged 511,000 viewers while three regular season games on ABC averaged 1.3 million viewers.

ESPN recently announced its broadcasting teams for the women’s NCAA tournament. The lead announcing team of Ryan Ruocco, Rebecca Lobo, and Holly Rowe remain together to call games starting in the Sweet 16 through the Final Four.

As has become standard, ESPN’s family of networks will air all 67 games of the upcoming tournament. ABC will air the championship game, two Elite Eight games, two Sweet 16 games, two second round games, and two first round games.

While it’s unlikely that this year’s tournament will reach the Clark-fueled heights of last year, where the championship game even beat the men’s title game in terms of viewership, ESPN is trending towards another strong ratings run this season.