Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

2024 NCAA Women's Championship Blows Away Ratings Records, Is Most Watched Hoops Broadcast of Any Kind Since 2019

09/04/2024

2024 NCAA Women's Championship Blows Away Ratings Records, Is Most Watched Hoops Broadcast of Any Kind Since 2019 The audience was up 90% year-over-year and 289% from 2022 and is the most-watched basketball game (college or pro, men's or women's) in five years. By Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.

Tuesday, April 9, 2024 - 2:32 pm

Print This Story | Subscribe

Story Highlights

With final Nielsen reporting completed, Sunday's epic title bout between No. 1 women's seeds Iowa and South Carolina scored 18.9 million viewers, becoming the most-viewed women's college basketball game ever and ESPN platforms' most-viewed college basketball game (men's or women's) on record. The showdown peaked at 24.1 million viewers in the game's final 15 minutes as South Carolina stormed to their second NCAA trophy in three years.

The NCAA Women's Basketball Championship is now the second most-watched non-Olympic women's sporting event ever on U.S. television behind the 2015 FIFA Women's World Cup Final between the U.S. and Japan. Sunday's Championship clash between the Hawkeyes and Gamecocks is the most-watched annual sporting event - excluding football - across all networks since 2019. The audience was up 90% year-over-year and 289% from 2022 and is the most-watched basketball game (college or pro, men's or women's) in five years.

Leading into the history-making matchup, the one-hour NCAA Women's Basketball Championship Special delivered 2.9 million viewers. ESPN's post-game studio programming averaged 1.4 million viewers as the Gamecocks lifted the NCAA trophy and cut down the nets in Cleveland. SportsCenter with Scott Van Pelt immediately following the National Semifinals drew 6.3 million viewers, the most-viewed SVP edition of SportsCenter on record.

The fan-favorite Bird & Taurasi Show Presented by AT&T recorded the largest championship game audience in its three-year history with 1.4 million viewers on ESPN. The offering is the second most-watched alternate telecast for a college event on ESPN platforms, just behind Field Pass with The Pat McAfee Show from the 2024 Rose Bowl Game.

The three-game 2024 NCAA Women's Final Four in Cleveland was the most-viewed Women's Final Four on record, averaging 13.8 million viewers. The trio of games was up 114% year-over-year and 299% higher than 2022.

The National Semifinals notched 11 million viewers, the most watched on record. Friday's matchups were up 142% year-over-year and 307% from 2022. Iowa-UConn finished with 14.4 million viewers, the second most-watched women's college basketball game on record and ESPN's most-watched basketball game (college or pro, men's or women's) on record. The high-octane showdown between the Hawkeyes and Huskies peaked at 17.3 million viewers and is also the most-watched college event ever on ESPN+. The late semifinal was up 156% over 2023's late semifinal between Iowa and South Carolina. The early semifinal featuring NC State and South Carolina finished with 7.2 million viewers, the most-watched early National Semifinal on record and an increase of 108% year-over-year. The Clash of the Carolinas peaked with 9.1 million viewers.

A complete look at the viewership records set across ESPN platforms during NCAA Women's March Madness and the NCAA Women's Basketball Championship will be released on Wednesday.
LINK: https://www.sportsvideo.org/2024/04/09/2024-ncaa-womens-championship-b...
See more stories from svg

Most recent headlines

05/01/2027

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be demoed at CES 2026

Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...

07/10/2026

Dalet Flex LTS Delivers Smarter Media Operations from Ingest to Distribution

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...

06/09/2026

Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA World Cup 2026 in Germany with Dolby Vision and Dolby Atmos

June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...

04/08/2026

Dalet Announces Commercial Availability of Dalia, Bringing Media-Aware Agentic AI to Enterprise Productions

Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...

21/07/2026

High Interest, limited resources: AI in Mongolia's newsrooms

New research involving a cross-section of Mongolias independent media landscape finds enthusiasm for AI as a tool to improve efficiency, sustainability and resi...

21/07/2026

FIFA World Cup 2026: The Firsts, Breakthroughs, and Lasting Legacies

With winners Spain having already paraded the World Cup trophy through Madrid in front of millions of fans and the dust now settling on an epic tournament of th...

21/07/2026

NHL Launches Centralized Production Operation for Regional Broadcasts; Four Teams Aboard To Start

In a time of disarray in regional sports broadcasting, the league will provide c...

21/07/2026

With Boland Monitors, NEPs PGA TOUR Unit Ready for Future

When NEP designed one of its largest recurring mobile production unit fleets for PGA TOUR coverage, the leading media services provider faced a familiar challe...

21/07/2026

elysia Channex Studio now available

High-end analogue channel strip boasts plug-in recall Originally revealed as a prototype back at NAMM 2024, the Channex Studio channel strip represented a b...

21/07/2026

Musik Hack announce HyFi mastering platform

Relies on same DSP as plug-in range Musik Hack's line-up has been influenced heavily by founder Stan Greene's work as a mixing engineer, and their M...

21/07/2026

Dirty Boy Jr. Series from Warm Audio

Official collaboration with boutique builder Dirty Boy Pedals Warm Audio have just announced the launch of a new guitar pedal range created in collaboration...

21/07/2026

SBS scores biggest ever FIFA World Cup Reach as Spain triumph in the final

SBS scores biggest ever FIFA World Cup Reach as Spain triumph in the final 21 July, 2026 Media releases Spain v Argentina attracted a Total TV reach of al...

21/07/2026

Rohde & Schwarz showcases broad range of EMC test solutions at EMC+SIPI 2026 in Dallas, Texas

Rohde & Schwarz showcases broad range of EMC test solutions at EMC SIPI 2026 in ...

21/07/2026

TVP Claims Top Spot as the World Cup and the Opole Music Festival Drive June Viewership in Poland

Warner Bros. Discovery's unbroken lead is interrupted as sports and live mus...

21/07/2026

Savannah Bananas Tap Calrec to Expand Banana Ball TV Coverage

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

21/07/2026

Where Growth Takes Root Viaccess-Orca Showcases the Found...

Across the TV and streaming ecosystem, industry players face mounting pressure to do more with less. They must simplify operations, protect premium content and ...

21/07/2026

Tuxera breaks performance ceilings and brings SMB/NFS mul...

Tuxera, a leading prover of quality-assured file systems and networking technologies, is bringing its latest advances in connectivity performance to the media w...

21/07/2026

COW Jobs: Apple Motion Expert for Custom FCP Rigged Graphics Package

COW Jobs: Apple Motion Expert for Custom FCP Rigged Graphics Package Brie Clayton July 21, 2026 0 Comments HIRING: Apple Motion Expert for Custom FCP ...

21/07/2026

Cinegy directly addresses the real issues of software-def...

Cinegy GmbH, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, will use its presence at IBC2026 (stand 7.A01, Amsterdam RAI, 11 14 September) to...

21/07/2026

Calrec brings leading audio solutions and long term busin...

Calrec will be located in Hall 8, on Stand C47 Beyond bigger For years, broadcast facilities were built around one assumption: provision for the biggest pro...

21/07/2026

Pebble takes the next step towards the future of media de...

Pebble, the leading automation, content management and integrated channel specialist, will discuss its future-facing developments for the new generation of medi...

21/07/2026

nxtedition Brings Production, AI and Automation Together...

nxtedition returns to IBC2026 with its consolidated production platform, showing how scripting, editing, graphics, AI-assisted tools and automation can work wit...

21/07/2026

Big Blue Marble brings C2PA Content Credentials to Cloud...

C2PA content signing helps broadcasters, public institutions, and publishers give audiences a verifiable record of where their video content came from and how i...

21/07/2026

HDHomeRun Enables Operation During Internet Outages

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

21/07/2026

Calif. Federal Judge Pauses Paramount-WBD Merger

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

21/07/2026

AWARN Rebuts Weigel Claims of 3.0 EAS Problems

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

21/07/2026

FCC Announces Tentative Agenda for August Open Meeting

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

21/07/2026

VIDA Introduces QC Manager for Collaborative Quality Cont...

New capability centralizes collaboration, feedback, security and status tracking within VIDA, providing a structured, auditable approach to master quality contr...

21/07/2026

Lightcraft Launches Exclusive Spark Story Beta for Filmmakers and Creators at SIGGRAPH 2026

Lightcraft Launches Exclusive Spark Story Beta for Filmmakers and Creators at SI...

21/07/2026

Indie Road Movie Where in the Hell Shot with Pocket Cinema Camera 4K

Indie Road Movie Where in the Hell Shot with Pocket Cinema Camera 4K Brie Clayton July 20, 2026 0 Comments Colorist blends vintage film looks to shape...

21/07/2026

Which USS Defiant Pulse Phaser effect is better?

Which USS Defiant Pulse Phaser effect is better? Graham Quince July 20, 2026 0 Comments Aargh, ever since @DarkRavenProductions posted a comment ask...

21/07/2026

X-Rite Pantone and NIFT Partner to Build Color Management Skills for India's Fashion and Textile Workforce

X-Rite Pantone and NIFT Partner to Build Color Management Skills for India's...

21/07/2026

Bluepeak Taps Harmonic to Speed Up Fiber Rollout and Expand into MDUs

Harmonics cOS Virtualized Broadband Platform and Pearl Remote OLTs Enable Flexible PON Migration, While SeaStar Optical Node Powers Cost-Effective Multi-Gigabit...

21/07/2026

From Lens to Pixel: Why Connected Workflows Are the Future of Live Venue Production

Every live event starts with a defining moment. A camera captures the game-winni...

21/07/2026

Built for Vera Rubin, NVIDIA Spectrum-6 Arrives in Gigascale AI Factories

AI has entered the gigascale era. The world's most advanced AI factories are bringing together hundreds of thousands of GPUs and CPUs to train frontier mod...

21/07/2026

NVIDIA Vera Rubin Driving Performance Per Watt, Lowest Token Cost for Partners Worldwide

NVIDIA Vera Rubin is here, and it's going gigascale. Vera Rubin NVL72 produ...

21/07/2026

RT announces biggest ever year for new drama

160 hours of Irish storytelling for 2026 KIN and The Walsh Sisters return RT has today unveiled its most ambitious drama slate ever, with a record-breakin...

20/07/2026

SVG All-Stars: Rob Coons, Senior Director, StudentU, Big Ten Network

The former Northwestern broadcast-operations leader is helping train the next generation of live-sports-production talent across the Big Ten The sports-product...

20/07/2026

Give Me the Backstory: Get to Know Stacey Lee, the Filmmaker Behind Murder 101

By Lucy Spicer One of the most exciting things about the Sundance Film Festival is having a front-row seat for the bright future of independent filmmaking. Whi...

20/07/2026

Graph Tech Guitar Labs open UK Online Store

Product range now readily available in the UK Graph Tech Guitar Labs have just announced the launch of a new UK Online Store that makes it quicker and easie...

20/07/2026

Audeze launch the Maxwell 2 ANC

Popular headset gains active noise cancellation The Maxwell headet was Audeze's first foray into the gaming world, and thanks to its Dolby Atmos compati...

20/07/2026

The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF) Call for Public Screening funding applications for Cycle 1, 2026/27 financial year is Open

The NFVF, an agency of the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture, has released t...

20/07/2026

Telemundo Inks Another Major U.S. Spanish-Language Soccer Deal

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

20/07/2026

HDHomeRun Enables Operation During An Internet Outage

Share Copy link Facebook X Linkedin Bluesky Email...

20/07/2026

Starfish highlights flexible, scalable transport stream p...

Starfish Technologies will use IBC2026 to showcase the flexibility of its transport stream processing software, including the latest versions of TS Splicer (Win...

20/07/2026

Bitfocus makes the connections at IBC2026

Bitfocus, the specialist in media control and monitoring, will show at IBC2026 (Elgato stand 8.D31, Amsterdam RAI, 11 14 September) how its Buttons control la...

20/07/2026

Mediagenix Introduces Trusted Agentic AI Operating Model...

Mediagenix, a global leader in smart content solutions to profitably connect the right content to the right audience, today announced new AI capabilities that e...

20/07/2026

Big Blue Marble Cloud DRM nominated for Streaming Media R...

Big Blue Marble's Cloud DRM has been nominated in the DRM/Content Protection category of the 2026 Streaming Media Readers' Choice Awards. Only four pro...

20/07/2026

Sky brings free global roaming to millions of loyal customers when they choose Sky Mobile

Monday 20 July 2026 Sky brings free global roaming to millions of loyal custome...

20/07/2026

Red Seat Ventures Announces Introduction of Premium Creator and Podcast Communities to Amazon DSP

Red Seat Ventures Announces Introduction of Premium Creator and Podcast Communit...