Recent evidence continues to highlight the growing commercial appeal of women’s college basketball. This year’s women’s NCAA tournament Selection Show on ESPN averaged 1.7 million viewers, according to ESPN PR, marking the largest audience for the show since 2005. In fact, Sunday night’s ‘NCAA Women’s Selection Special presented by Capital One’ was the second most-watched since ’05 with 1.7 million viewers 👀 #NCAAWBB pic.twitter.com/ReMyj9PzyR — ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) March 18, 2025
In the post-Caitlin Clark era, shattering decades-old viewership records has become a norm for women’s college basketball. This year, ESPN achieved its most-watched women’s college basketball season since 2008-09, with an impressive 3% increase in viewership year-over-year and a significant 41% rise compared to two years ago. Across ESPN’s family of networks, a total of 87 women’s college basketball games averaged 280,000 viewers, while 15 of those games attracted audiences exceeding 500,000. Notably, games aired on ESPN averaged 511,000 viewers, and three regular season games on ABC averaged 1.3 million viewers.
ESPN recently announced its broadcasting teams for the women’s NCAA tournament, retaining the lead announcing trio of Ryan Ruocco, Rebecca Lobo, and Holly Rowe to call games from the Sweet 16 through the Final Four. As is now standard, ESPN’s networks will air all 67 games of the upcoming tournament, with ABC broadcasting the championship game, two Elite Eight games, two Sweet 16 games, two second round games, and two first round games.
While it’s uncertain if this year’s tournament can match the Clark-fueled heights of last year—where the championship game even outperformed the men’s title game in viewership—ESPN is heading toward another promising ratings season.
