Sweet Carolina

The GIST: Women’s March Madness was expected to be more compelling than the men’s, and the numbers proved this. The tournament hype — largely driven by Iowa’s star guard Caitlin Clark — resulted in the most-watched college basketball games in ESPN history. Believe.

• As we await the viewership numbers from yesterday’s championship game, keep scrolling for more on women’s basketball’s wins this weekend.

The record: Friday’s Iowa vs. UConn game drew 14.2M viewers, peaking at 17M to become the most-watched basketball matchup at any level on ESPN and the most-watched women’s hoops game over the past 30 years. The contest also beat out every regular-season college football game this season except one and was ESPN’s second-most watched non-football telecast ever.

• This tops the previous 12.3M record set by Iowa and LSU four days earlier, which saw higher numbers than the winning game of the 2023 MLB World Series (11.48M) and nearly all of last year’s NBA Finals games.

• The Iowa–UConn viewership also eclipsed that of the other semifinal between South Carolina and NC State, which averaged 7.1M viewers in the timeslot before.

The Clark Effect: This solidifies a trend that’s been observed all season — Clark is the reason record-breaking crowds are showing up. The most recognizable athlete in all of March Madness featured in the most-watched game for each round in the women’s tourney, including 3.2M viewers in the first and 4.9M in the second.

Lingering questions: Clark will likely receive an Indiana Fever jersey during next Monday’s WNBA Draft, and the league is already trying to flex games into larger venues to keep up with demand. And as Clark moves to the pros, fans are looking for the next huge women’s basketball star to post up. Fresh to death.

The GIST: Viewership numbers from women’s March Madness prove the women’s game is thriving, yet significant infrastructure issues are still holding the tournament back from realizing its full potential (and revenue opportunities). A very, very mad world.

📺 The women’s championship still doesn’t have a primetime spot. This year’s final aired yesterday afternoon and is expected to outdraw tonight’s primetime men’s championship, but viewership may have been higher if ESPN flexed the game to a better spot. When CBS did this for the NWSL championship in 2022, it saw record viewership of 915K viewers for a 71% increase YoY.

💸 The NCAA holds back the women’s tournament through its corporate partnership setup. Its current media rights deal forces sponsors to buy into the men’s tournament before any other NCAA competition, creating a significant barrier for smaller brands who might otherwise sponsor the women’s tourney but can’t afford the costly men’s buy-in.

• And even if they can afford it, companies that primarily serve women consumers get brand value from sponsoring women’s basketball, not men’s. There’s a reason that beauty brands Glossier and NYX have partnered with the WNBA and not the NBA.

💰 Tournament “units” still don’t exist in women’s March Madness. For the men’s tournament, conferences receive units worth $2M based on how many of their teams make the tourney and how far they advance. In 2024, the NCAA will pay out $170M in units, but no such payment structure exists for the women, contributing to a massive revenue gap. It should be a lay-up…

👀 With more eyes on the women's game, the NCAA is still making costly mistakes. Sweet 16 matchups were played with an incorrect three-point line in Portland, refereeing led to contentious outcomes, and a bizarre nose ring stipulation sidelined Notre Dame star Hannah Hidalgo in a critical Sweet 16 loss. Foul.

• The inadequate preparation did more than just affect game outcomes. The Utah women were unable to stay near the second-round site in Spokane, Washington, instead getting a hotel 35 miles away in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, where the team was exposed to racist vitriol in an area known for ties to white nationalism, bigotry, and racist violence.

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