It was the Caitlin crush.
The national fervor for women鈥檚 college basketball this season, ignited by enormous interest in Iowa standout Caitlin Clark, culminated with a massive television audience Sunday for her team鈥檚 loss to South Carolina in the national title contest.
The game, shown over the air on ABC and on cable鈥檚 ESPN, was seen in 18.9 million homes. That鈥檚 a record for a women鈥檚 basketball contest and the largest audience for a basketball game of either gender, college or professional, since 2019. It was the third time in seven days Clark鈥檚 Hawkeyes had broken the women鈥檚 viewership record, and the finale outdrew Monday鈥檚 men鈥檚 championship game that garnered 14.8 million across cable鈥檚 TBS, TNT and TrueTV outlets.
Iowa鈥檚 ratings knockouts hit the 狐狸视频 market, too.
The championship game, locally on KDNL (Channel 30) and ESPN, was seen in 9.3% of the market and in about 119,200 homes according to viewership-tracking company Nielsen. The Hawkeyes鈥 semifinal victory on Friday, on ESPN, pulled a 7.3 local rating and 95,700 households. 狐狸视频 ranked 18th nationally for both games.
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Those Iowa games far outpaced what the local teams drew on TV over the weekend. The best Cardinals figures were on Saturday, when Bally Sports Midwest generated a 5.1 rating and 65,500 homes for a game against Miami. The best figures for the Blues, also on BSM, were on Sunday for their contest against Anaheim 鈥 2.2 rating, 27,500 households.
The Battlehawks pulled a 2.7 rating and 34,200 households for their United Football League home opener Saturday night against Arlington on KDNL. Viewership figures last weekend for the other major local team, City SC, are unavailable because its match was exclusively streamed on Apple TV+, which refuses to announce audience sizes for its Major League Soccer coverage.
Clark next is headed to the WNBA, and CBS announced this week that it will televise eight of that league鈥檚 regular-season games on its broadcast network (KMOV, Channel 4 locally), the most it ever has shown. In addition, 12 more will appear on cable鈥檚 CBS Sports Network. WNBA contests also are to be shown this season, which begins May 14, on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, Ion, NBA TV as well as multiple streaming platforms including Prime Video.
Indiana is expected to take Clark with the first pick in this year鈥檚 WNBA draft, and in anticipation, 36 of the Fever鈥檚 40 regular-season games are set to be televised nationally.
Head to head
City SC on Sunday will make the first of its three appearances this season on an over-the-air network as its game against Austin will be shown on Fox (KTVI, Channel 2 locally). It will be a rare time that viewership figures will be available, though only partially. The game, at 3:45 p.m., also will be streamed on Apple TV+ outside of its paywall, but no audience size is expected to be announced for that coverage.
KTVI also plans a local postgame show from 6 to 7 p.m. City SC coach Bradley Carnell is scheduled to appear, and features on players Tim Parker and Tomas Totland are planned. Sports director Martin Kilcoyne reports from CityPark with colleague Kevin Ryans. Daniel Esteve anchors in the studio with commentary from Ty Keough.
That match will be part of an extremely busy afternoon of 狐狸视频 sports on TV, which will have three games on simultaneously after the Blues entertain Seattle at noon on TNT and Max. Then the Battlehawks are in San Antonio for a 2 p.m. kickoff on KDNL, followed by the Cardinals in Arizona at 3:10 p.m., both overlapping City SC.