The 2023 NCAA Women’s Tournament continues to deliver impressive audiences for ESPN’s networks.
On Tuesday, ESPN announced that the eight Sweet 16 games on Friday and Saturday averaged a record 1.2 million viewers. The round was led by Ohio State’s win over UConn on ABC Saturday afternoon, which averaged a record 2.414 million viewers.
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South Carolina’s win over UCLA on ESPN Saturday afternoon averaged 1.753 million viewers, the second most-watched Sweet 16 game on record. Three other games in the round topped a million viewers: Colorado-Iowa on ESPN Friday night (1.288 million, head to head with Miami-Houston in the men’s tournament), Notre Dame-Maryland on ESPN Saturday afternoon (1.231 million), and LSU-Utah on ESPN Friday night (1.099 million).
The Elite Eight also drew record viewership for ESPN.
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Three of the four games topped two million viewers. LSU-Miami on Sunday was the low game on the slate, averaging 1.894 million viewers on ESPN. Iowa-Louisville, which started at 9:20 PM on ESPN Sunday night, averaged a tournament-high 2.499 million viewers, which was a record for the round. On Monday, South Carolina-Maryland averaged 2.167 million viewers on ESPN, followed by 2.233 million for Virginia Tech-Ohio State. That’s an average of 2.198 million viewers for the round, the most-watched Elite Eight on record.
Following these viewership numbers, the cries for the NCAA to unbundle the Women’s Tournament and sell its rights separately will only grow louder.
