This March, history struck not once, not twice, but thrice. Before the beginning of the match that would change everything, excitement was already building. The 2024 March Madness tournament would mark the end of both Iowa Hawkeye superstar Caitlin Clark and LSU Tiger Angel Reese’s collegiate careers before their entrance into the WNBA. In 2023, Reese beat Clark to win the National Championship, making the 2024 LSU–Iowa quarterfinal rematch the most anticipated game of the 2024 tournament. Caught up in the rivalry, little did we expect how path-breaking the game would turn out to be.
Not only would Clark end up scoring an impressive 41 points, but the match amassed a running average 12.3 million viewers on ESPN and became the most watched women’s collegiate basketball game in history. And just as things seemed like they couldn’t get better, they did. The Hawkeyes’ win (94–87) propelled the team into their semifinal match with UConn, which had an average of 14.2 million viewers and peaked at 17 million viewers, shattering the previous record. But, apparently, two records in one tournament was not enough. At the time of writing, the Iowa– South Carolina final has reached 18.9 million average viewers, officially making it the most-watched basketball broadcast in ESPN history. Phew.
Given the tumultuous relationship between society and female athletes, this moment marks what could only be described as a turning of the tides. So what could’ve caused this surge in viewership? As of recently, broadcasting companies like ESPN and the BBC have been taking more initiative when it comes to sponsoring and promoting women’s sports. The changes we see in collegiate women’s basketball can also be observed with women’s soccer, which has become more and more popular since the BBC started to provide more coverage of tournaments in 2019, as reported in a 2023 Nielsen analytics overview of women’s sport coverage. Since then, viewership of women’s football skyrocketed to a record 46.7 million viewers during the 2023 FIFA World Cup final. This, too, was aided by the fact that FIFA made a deal with five European broadcasting companies so that the games could be aired without cost, increasing access to women’s sporting events.
In the case of March Madness, ESPN has started to take the same initiatives. According to the same Nielsen analytics overview, the average air time given to men’s sports was almost three times the amount granted for women. As of 2021, with the addition of streaming women’s sports on network television, ESPN coverage of NCAA Women’s Basketball increased, and viewership of women’s sports has been making previously unseen strides — strides like the Iowa–South Carolina final, for instance.
There is also the undeniable fact that the stardom of the athletes who participated in these games has helped garner viewers. In a survey conducted by SponsorUnited, as of 2024, about 52% of collegiate athletes with the highest attention of NIL (name, image, and likeness) are women, which is a 38% increase since the last year. Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese, and Paige Bueckers are just some of the athletes whose high social media presence and following has led to higher audience turnout at these games. This is even more apparent in comparison to other games in the bracket without high NIL players such as NC State–Texas, which only averaged 2.5 million viewers.
As a result, not only has more attention been brought onto women’s collegiate basketball, but the success of these players has caused an increase in committed female athletes. From an overview posted by the NCAA in 2023, there was a 5% increase in student athletes competing in women’s sports in the 2021–2022 season, which is the largest it has been in twenty years.
The cause for this “turning of tides” is not that women’s sport has been getting more competitive; rather, with more opportunities and promotion, more audiences are destined to come. Although women’s sport coverage has tripled as of recent years, it still only accounts for 15% of total coverage. While the progress we’ve achieved as a society with this March Madness season is incredible, it shouldn’t end here. So, here’s to more opportunities.
