By Joiner Martínez
Iowa’s 94-87 win against LSU in the Elite Eight on Monday drew 12.3 million viewers, the most in women’s college basketball history, according to ESPN.
The figure surpassed the previous record of 9.9 million viewers for the game between the same programs in last season’s NCAA championship.
ESPN said Monday’s figure was the largest viewership of any college basketball game on its platforms and the second-highest of any basketball game – college or NBA – since 2012.
Meanwhile, UConn’s victory over USC in Monday’s other Elite Eight game drew 6.7 million viewers, which would have surpassed the viewership of every title game since 1996 except the year’s championship game. past. UConn-USC peaked at 10.4 million viewers.
Before last year, the previous record for an NCAA women’s basketball title game in the ESPN era (since 1996) was 5.68 million viewers for UConn’s win over Oklahoma in 2002, a game in that Sue Bird and Diana Taurasi participated.
The previous all-time record for a women’s basketball game before last year’s title game was 8.1 million viewers for a Virginia-Stanford national semifinal on CBS in 1992.
Now comes the national semifinals Friday night on ESPN. Last year’s tournament semifinal between Iowa and South Carolina was watched by an average of 5.5 million viewers, the largest audience ever for a semifinal.
The two semifinal games combined averaged 4.5 million viewers, making it the most-watched collegiate Final Four. The entire 2023 Final Four weekend – including the championship – garnered an average of 6.5 million viewers.
This year’s semifinals with undefeated South Carolina against NC State in the first game, followed by Iowa against UConn, will undoubtedly break the record of last year’s Final Four.
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