CLEVELAND, OH – APRIL 7: Caitlin Clark #22 of the Iowa Hawkeyes dribbles the ball while being guarded by Raven Johnson #25 of the South Carolina Gamecocks during the second half at the 2024 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament championship game between Iowa and South Carolina at Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse on April 7, 2024 in Cleveland, Ohio. (Photo by Thien-An Truong/ISI Photos/Getty Images)© Thien-An Truong/ISI Photos/Getty Images

The NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship game was expected to draw record-breaking viewership, and it delivered.

According to ESPN PR, the championship game that saw the University of South Carolina Gamecocks prevail over the Iowa Hawkeyes drew 18.7 million viewers per Nielsen Fast Nationals, making it the most-watched women’s basketball game of all time.

The second and third most-watched women’s basketball games of all time were the two previous games of Iowa and star guard Caitlin Clark. The Final Four victory of Iowa over the University of Connecticut on April 5 garnered 14.2 million viewers, which eclipsed the 12.3 million average viewers that watched Iowa prevail over Angel Reese and LSU on April 1.

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Prior to those games, the most-watched women’s basketball game was the 1983 Women’s Basketball National Championship between the University of Southern California and Louisiana Tech. That was the first of two national championships for the legendary Cheryl Miller, and it was just the second year of the Women’s NCAA Tournament.

The increase in viewership for this year’s games was noticeable all season long, but the championship game showed that the women’s game could attract an audience similar to the men’s game — something it did not show last year when Clark had entered the scene.

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Last year’s women’s national championship game between Iowa and LSU had nearly 10 million viewers, making it the most-watched women’s basketball game since the 1980s, but it still fell well short of the men’s viewership, which had 14.7 million viewers. And that game between the University of Connecticut and San Diego State was actually the least-watched men’s basketball game of all time.

But this year’s women’s championship game garnered more viewers than five of the men’s championship games of the last decade.

It beat out majority of the men’s championship games that aired on Turner, while most of the men’s games that aired on CBS still performed better than the women’s championship.

The 2024 men’s championship game between UConn and Purdue tonight could very well beat out the women’s championship by a few million viewers. But the fact that it’s even in question in play for the two to be in the same ballpark is unprecedented progress for women’s basketball that’s been battling for equality for decades.