The audience for the game between the number one seeds peaked at 24.1 million during the final 15 minutes.South Carolina celebrates after the championship game against Iowa in the women's NCAA Tournament, April 7, 2024. 3:37 PM PDT April 9, 2024in the women’s NCAA championship game has achieved a pair of milestones.. It also was the second most-watched non-Olympic women’s sporting event on U.S. television.
The audience for the national title game was up 90% over last year when Clark and Iowa fell to LSU. That also was the first time since 1995 that the championship was on network television. During the Final Four, Clark said the audience growth was benefiting all of women’s sports, not just basketball. Clark was the marquee player of March Madness, but there was an impressive group of freshmen, headlined by Southern California’s JuJu Watkins, Notre Dame’s Hannah Hidalgo and Texas’ Madison Booker. Watkins set the NCAA record for most points by a freshman with 920.
Fox carried 14 women’s games this season, including three in prime time, NBC two, and CBS had the Big Ten tournament championship. ABC had five regular-season games and nine during the NCAA Tournament.