The Women's NCAA Basketball tournament has sadly come to an end. Congratulations are in order for South Carolina. It was a tough-fought game by both teams and was very entertaining.

There's been a lot of talk recently about the rising popularity of women's basketball. Let's take a look to see if those claims are valid...

2024 Final Four Viewership

The women's Final Four games broke several records. The Iowa vs. UCONN women's basketball game broke ESPN records as the most-viewed basketball game of all time with 14.2 MILLION viewers. Viewership peaked at 17 million viewers. The South Carolina vs. NC State game's viewership peaked at 9 million viewers.

That's a whopping 26 million total viewers (at the peak) for only two games. To put this into context, 26 million viewers is roughly every resident in the top 10 most populous US cities. This includes New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Phoenix, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Diego, Dallas and Austin.

How does this compare to last year?

Viewership was up across the board. 2024 broke all kinds of viewership records and far surpassed the 2023 tournament views.

• The second round averaged 1.4 million viewers. This was an increase from 650,000 average viewers in 2023.
•  The Sweet 16 averaged 2.4 million viewers which was an impressive 96% increase from the 2023 tournament.
• The Elite Eight averaged 6.2 million viewers which was a 184% increase from the 2023 tournament.

Viewership is expected to continue climbing. Let's see if the women can build on this momentum next season! 

Information from Sportsnaut. Read more here.