NCAA women's tournament first round viewership dips in 2025 without Caitlin Clark driving ratings
Women's basketball is on the rise, and the NCAA women's tournament is seeing the fruits of that attention. But the early March Madness rounds have seen a slight dip in viewership after the Caitlin Clark-fueled frenzy of last year's tournament.
According to ESPN PR, the first round of the 2025 NCAA tournament averaged 367,000 across all games. UConn's dominant 69-point win over Arkansas State drew the most viewers, with 1.1 million people tuning in to the game on ABC.
Other top games were USC-UNC Greensboro (which drew 889,000 viewers on ABC), Tennessee-South Florida (684,000 on ESPN) and Iowa-Murray State (672,000 on ESPN).
#NCAAWBB viewers tuned in for '25 First Round #MarchMadness action
— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) March 25, 2025
🏀 Avg. 367K viewers across First Round, up 43% from '23
🏀 2nd most-consumed First Round on record
🏀 ABC saw its 2nd most-viewed First Round EVER
🏀 ESPN saw its 2nd most-watched First Round since '08 pic.twitter.com/iMHPsuD022
ESPN notes that the viewership for the first round was up 43% from 2023, when an average of 257,000 people watched the first two days of competition. But it leaves out the record-breaking viewership from last year, where viewership averaged 469,000 in the 2024 first round, per ESPN. That number was boosted by a whopping 3.2 million people tuning into Clark and Iowa's 91-65 win over Holy Cross.
The difference between this year and last year represents a nearly 22% drop in viewership for the first round.
It doesn't help that the early rounds of March Madness tend to be more lopsided on the women's side, due in part to a lack of resources and development in mid-major programs. Six teams — including UConn, USC, Tennessee and Iowa, in the four most-watched games of the round — dropped 100+ points on their lower-seeded opponents in the first round.
Compare things to the men's side, which saw its highest viewership numbers in the first weekend since 1993, despite a relative lack of upsets or Cinderellas.
ESPN has yet to release the numbers for the second round of the women's tournament, which took place Sunday and Monday. A handful of exciting games — including Kansas State and Ole Miss' upsets on Sunday and Maryland's 2OT comeback thriller on Monday — may have drawn extra viewers. But it is unlikely to surpass the record 1.4 million viewership average set during the 2024 second round: 4.9 million tuned in to watch Clark and Iowa defeat West Virginia last year.
As the Sweet 16 approaches, the tournament will also be without one of its biggest stars after USC's JuJu Watkins tore her right ACL. But matchups between a number of high-profile teams will still draw eyes as the tournament moves forward.
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