NCAA Division 1 Women’s College Basketball Championship Breaks Records for ESPN

Yesterday, Angel Reese and the LSU Tigers defeated Caitlin Clark and the Iowa Hawkeyes to win the NCAA Division 1 Women's College Basketball Championship on ESPN. Today, we’ve learned that game broke multiple records.

  • Yesterday’s National Championship game, which aired on ESPN and streamed on ESPN+, peaked at 12.6 million viewers.
  • That made it the most viewed NCAA Division 1 Women’s basketball game on record, across all networks.
  • The 9.9 million viewers the broadcast saw consistently was a 103% increase from last year’s National Championship.
  • And perhaps most impressive, this game was the most-viewed college event on ESPN+, men’s or women’s.
  • That is saying a lot considering ESPN+ offers various streams of the NCAA National Football Championship.

  • While many of the viewers likely tuned in to watch Caitlin Clark cap off her historic NCAA Tournament run, which saw her score a record 191 points and drop a record 60 assists in her six games, it was big games from Angel Reese, Alexis Morris and Jasmine Carson that earned LSU the championship.
  • Another record was broken in the game, as LSU became the first women’s team ever to surpass 100 points in a National Championship, winning by a score of 102-85.