NCAA Women's Tournament Ratings Down From Last Year, But It's Not All Bad News
The 2024 NCAA Women's Tournament shattered viewership records. And while this year's tournament hasn't matched those numbers, the ratings still show a significant improvement over the pre-Caitlin Clark years.
With an average of 1.7 million viewers across ESPN networks, this year's Sweet 16 games were the second-most watched on record. That's a 29% decrease from last year's 2.4 million — but a 39% increase from 2023.
Likewise, this year's Elite Eight was the second-most-watched quarterfinals round ever with a 2.9 million viewership average. That number is down a whopping 53% from last year's 6.2 million, but up 34% from 2023.
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Further, all four of this year’s games are among the top-10 most-watched Elite Eight women's games on record.
It's worth noting that this year's viewership topped the 2023 tournament, which Clark was a part of. That's the year that her Iowa Hawkeyes fell to Angel Reese and the LSU Tigers in the national championship game, and her popularity began to skyrocket.
Did Caitlin Clark Leave A Lasting Impact On The College Women's Game?
Last year’s Elite Eight featured the rivalry game between Clark and Iowa vs. Reese and LSU. That rematch of the 2023 national championship game drew 12.3 million viewers on ESPN, which was the most-watched women’s basketball game in history at the time. That record was later surpassed by Iowa’s Final Four and title games that followed.
Clark is in the WNBA now, but this year's numbers have proven that the current young stars — like UConn's Paige Bueckers — are still a draw for fans of the women's game. And the 2025 ratings could have been higher still if USC superstar JuJu Watkins hadn't torn her ACL in the second round.
UConn's Paige Bueckers is the projected No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 WNBA Draft.
(Photo by Alika Jenner/Getty Images)
Clark undoubtedly brought more eyeballs, money and attention to women's basketball than the sport has ever seen before. The question now is, will the college game continue to grow now that she's gone?
"Caitlin Clark is a unique figure that has drawn excitement in a way that we have not seen from any other player," Victor Matheson, an economics professor at the College of the Holy Cross who specializes in sports, told MarketWatch.
"But she won’t be the last one. Every league has turnover in stars. People wrote the obituary for the NBA when [Larry] Bird and [Magic] Johnson retired — and then Michael Jordan came along. And then Jordan retires, and here comes LeBron James and Steph Curry."
Will the "Caitlin Clark Effect" last for years to come? Or at least until the next phenom comes along? I guess we'll find out.