Women’s college hoops at new heights
March Madness has always been synonymous with the men’s NCAA basketball tournament, which ends with the Final Four and championship game. The women’s NCAA basketball tournament was often an afterthought, relegated to secondary status and drawing lower television ratings.
Not in 2024, the year the nation went mad for women’s college basketball.
On Monday night, the Connecticut Huskies defeated the Purdue Boilermakers for their second consecutive championship to conclude a men’s tournament that will be largely forgotten except among fans of Connecticut and the other Final Four teams.
The women’s tournament eclipsed the men’s tournament in anticipation, thrill, intrigue, generational talent and audience. The championship game featured the best team, the undefeated South Carolina Gamecocks, led by Dawn Staley, against the best player, long-range shooting superstar Caitlin Clark of the Iowa Hawkeyes.
South Carolina won, and so did fans of the women’s game.
For the first time in tournament history, the women’s championship game had more viewers, 18.9 million, than the men’s championship, 14.8 million.
This can be partially explained by the “one-and-done” dynamic of men’s college basketball as players leave after their freshman seasons to enter the NBA draft, forcing fans to familiarize themselves with new players who hardly share the same loyalty to the school.
But the primary reason for this year’s historic ratings for women’s college basketball can be found in its four most-watched college basketball games in history, all within the past year.
Last year’s national championship game between Iowa and LSU drew a then-record 9.9 million viewers. A rematch in this year’s Elite Eight drew 12.3 million viewers, a record quickly topped by Friday’s Final Four matchup between Iowa and Connecticut, with 14.2 million viewers. That record was drubbed Sunday afternoon in the championship game.
The common denominator was Clark, the biggest name in college basketball this year. Her legend grew with each shot from the logo and each quicksilver pass as she became the all-time leading scorer in women’s and men’s college basketball.
Debates will rage for years whether she’s the greatest collegiate women’s basketball player of all time, but she is undeniably the most consequential and as great an individual attraction as any sport has ever seen, a phenomenon who’s had a Tiger Woods-like impact on television ratings.
This created a halo effect. Those eyes on Clark also witnessed other players excelling at their craft.
Clark was the gateway for casual fans of women’s basketball that led them to the talents and stories of Angel Reese, Paige Bueckers, Juju Watkins, Kamilla Cardoso and the many others who showed how basketball doesn’t have to be played above the rim to be exciting.
During this tournament, the nation also got to better know Staley, South Carolina’s dynamic coach. With three national titles in seven years, she is compiling a Hall of Fame coaching career that may surpass her Hall of Fame playing career.
In a classy move after Sunday’s championship game, Staley took the microphone back to praise Clark, saying: “She carried a heavy load for our sport, and it just is not going to stop here on the collegiate tour. But when she is the No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft, she’s going to lift that league up as well. So, Caitlin Clark if you’re out there, you are one of the GOATS of our game. We appreciate you.”
Staley was one of the greats on whose shoulders Clark stood, just as a new generation of women college basketball players will stand on Clark’s shoulders.
That women play exciting and skilled basketball isn’t a revelation. But in 2024, our nation’s full attention and appreciation was a welcome and overdue revelation.
Caitlin Clark drew in fans; talent of NCAA teams kept them enraptured