Women's Final Four TV ratings see steep drop-off without Caitlin Clark

No Caitlin Clark, nary ratings history. 

The NCAA women's hoops tourney Final Four saw a steep drop-off successful TV ratings from past year's record-breaking viewership. Without Clark successful the tournament, the broadcasts of UConn vs. UCLA and South Carolina vs. Texas averaged conscionable 3.9 cardinal viewers for ESPN. It marked a 64% alteration from the record-setting 10.8 cardinal viewers successful 2024, according to Front Office Sports.

Still, adjacent without Clark, this year's Final Four was the second-most watched successful past and was adjacent an betterment from the 2023 variation that besides featured Clark. 

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University of Iowa Hawkeyes defender Caitlin Clark cheers arsenic with teammates during the University of Nebraska Cornhuskers crippled astatine the Big Ten Women's Basketball Championship astatine Target Center connected March 10, 2024, successful Minneapolis. (Angelina Katsanis/Star Tribune via Getty Images)

But Clark's popularity arsenic a assemblage subordinate helped the athletics highest astatine specified historical consciousness past twelvemonth that the women's title crippled betwixt her Iowa squad and Dawn Staley's South Carolina had amended ratings than the men's title crippled for the archetypal clip ever.

With Clark successful the WNBA, the pro league benefited from that surge successful popularity successful 2024. 

Clark made the Fever the most-watched squad successful the WNBA by a landslide successful her rookie year, arsenic the 14 most-watched WNBA games of the play each included the Fever. On apical of that, she broke the grounds for astir All-Star votes for immoderate subordinate successful WNBA history.

INSIDE CAITLIN CLARK'S IMPACT ON MEN'S BASKETBALL

Indiana Fever defender Caitlin Clark plays against the Dallas Wings successful Indianapolis, Sept. 15, 2024. (AP Photo/Michael Conroy, File)

In aboriginal September, Clark’s Indiana Fever played successful beforehand of a TV assemblage of 1.26 cardinal viewers successful a crippled against the Minnesota Lynx that was played astatine the aforesaid clip arsenic a Week-1 Friday nighttime NFL crippled betwixt the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers. 

In Clark's archetypal regular-season finale against the Washington Mystics connected Sept. 19, the 20,711 fans that showed up astatine Capital One Arena acceptable a caller grounds for the highest-attended WNBA regular-season contest.

Clark drew a WNBA grounds 1.84 cardinal viewers to her archetypal playoff crippled against the Connecticut Sun connected Sept. 22, portion competing with an NFL Sunday. She followed it up with different grounds assemblage of 2.54 cardinal viewers for Game 2.

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Caitlin Clark of the Indiana Fever talks to the media during an introductory property league connected April 17, 2024, astatine Gainbridge Fieldhouse successful Indianapolis. (Ron Hoskins/NBAE via Getty Images)

But aft Clark's Fever play ended, the WNBA playoffs besides saw a steep drop-off successful viewers. 

The archetypal crippled betwixt the Aces and Liberty, a rematch of past year's WNBA finals betwixt 2 of the league's astir fashionable and palmy teams, drew an assemblage of conscionable 929,000, which was 50% little than the Fever's Game 1 against the Sun.

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