Elite NCAA Tournament Final Four Viewership Can't Compete With Caitlin Clark
While the women's basketball Final Four of the 2025 NCAA Tournament contained four elite women's basketball teams, neither of the two games delivered in terms of being closely contested.
The first game of the evening was between the South Carolina Gamecocks and the Texas Longhorns, who had faced each other three times prior this season. Dawn Staley's Gamecocks squad ultimately produced a 74-57 win after pulling away in a big way in the game's second half.
Then came the UConn Huskies vs. UCLA Bruins came, which was all Huskies all game long. The final score being 85-51 conveys just how much of a blowout the game felt.
However, these big wins didn't detract from the interest in these games, which is shown by the Final Four viewership numbers that were released on April 5.
Per an X post from ESPN PR, Friday's Final Four was the third most-watched NCAA women's national semifinals since 1995. The South Carolina vs. Texas game drew 3.6 million viewers while the UConn vs. UCLA attracted 4.1 million viewers and peaked at 4.7 million, making it the fifth-most viewed Final Four game on an ESPN platform.
Friday, ESPN delivered the third-best #NCAAWBB National Semifinals in 30 years 🏀 pic.twitter.com/cCoD7z545T
— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) April 5, 2025
While these numbers are great, they don't come close to competing with last year's numbers, which were largely because of former Iowa Hawkeyes star Caitlin Clark. An April 5 article from Sports Media Watch wrote, "Viewership fell 65 percent from last year’s record-high of 11.0 million and a more modest 13% from 4.5 million in 2023."
Last year's Final Four included a contest between Clark's Hawkeyes and Paige Bueckers' Huskies. And an April 10, 2024, article from NPR writes that, "The Elite Eight matchup between Iowa and LSU — a rematch of the 2023 NCAA championship, drew a then-record 12.3 million viewers, ESPN said, with a peak audience of 16.1 million. The subsequent semifinals between Iowa and the University of Connecticut broke that record, attracting 14.2 million TV viewers, ESPN said."
Of course, the 2024 NCAA national championship game between Iowa and South Carolina averaged about 18.7 million viewers and peaked at a staggering 24 million combined on ESPN and ABC, making it the most-watched sporting event since 2019, aside from football and the Olympics.
'24 #NCAAWBB Natl. Championship ended the season with a bang on ABC & ESPN
— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) April 8, 2024
🏀18.7M viewers, peak 24M
🏀Up 89% from '23 & 285% from '22
🏀Most-watched basketball game (men's or women's, college or pro) since '19
🏀Most-watched sporting event since '19 (excl. football & Olympics) pic.twitter.com/0a4uwiOwgp
In other words, while the 2025 viewership is great for the game's growth, it also reiterates the Caitlin Clark Effect.
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Grant Young covers Women’s Basketball, the New York Yankees, and the New York Mets for Sports Illustrated’s ‘On SI’ sites. He holds an MFA degree in creative writing from the University of San Francisco (USF), where he also graduated with a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing and played on USF’s Division I baseball team for five years. However, he now prefers Angel Reese to Angels in the Outfield.
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