Clark, Iowa set record viewership for third consecutive Big Ten title
Fans can’t get enough of Caitlin Clark. Iowa’s Big Ten championship win over Nebraska on Sunday was the mostwatched conference tournament game on any network in women’s college basketball history, CBS Sports reported on Tuesday.
The network said that the game, where the Hawkeyes won 94-89 for their third consecutive Big Ten title behind 34 points and 12 assists from Clark, had an average of 3.021 million viewers. The audience peaked when the game went into overtime and 4.450 million people tuned in.
The matchup was the most-watched game of the day, which also featured the SEC championship where South Carolina outlasted LSU after a scuffle in the fourth quarter to win their eighth conference title in 10 years.
The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch compared the numbers between the women’s Big Ten championship and the storied rivalry between Duke and North Carolina’s men’s basketball teams. The Blue Devils and Tar Heels faced off on Saturday in the regular-season finale. North Carolina won at Cameron Indoor, clinching the regular-season ACC crown. Deitsch said that game, which was aired on ESPN, had an average of 3.076 million viewers.
The Big Ten Network also reported that Iowa amassed more than 1 million viewers for both its semifinal and quarterfinal games in the conference tournament. It’s the first time the network has seen two women’s games pass the 1 million mark. The 1.075 million fans that tuned in for the semifinal against Michigan made the game the mostwatched women’s sports event and second overall in the network’s history.
Clark – with other stars such as LSU’s Angel Reese, former South Carolina star Aliyah Boston and Stanford’s Cameron Brink – have helped elevate the profile of women’s basketball. Last year’s Final Four saw record viewership on ESPN with an average of 5.5 million and peak of 6.6 million people watching Iowa versus South Carolina. When Clark broke Pete Maravich’s all-time scoring record this month in a game against Ohio State, an average of 3.4 million fans tuned in, making it the most-watched women’s college basketball game in Fox’s history.
The Hawkeyes clinched a berth in the NCAA Tournament with the championship win. They will learn their seeding for the competition on Selection Sunday.