Women’s NCAA title game was most watched basketball broadcast since 2019

• South Carolina-Iowa averaged 18.7m viewers on ABC and ESPN
• Championship showdown peaks at 24m viewers on Sunday

South Carolina's victory over Caitlin Clark and Iowa in Sunday's women's NCAA championship game had a preliminary audience average of 18.7 million on ABC and ESPN. The only sporting events in the US to draw a bigger TV audience since 2019 have been American football, the World Cup and the Olympics.

The audience numbers are expected to increase when Nielsen releases its final numbers on Tuesday. Nielsen says the audience peaked at 24 million.

It's the most-watched basketball game since 2019, when the men's NCAA title game between Virginia and Texas Tech averaged 19.6 million on CBS.

Monday night's men's final between UConn and Purdue was shown on TBS and TNT. It's possible that this will be the first year the women's title game has a bigger audience.

The 2015 Final Four game between Wisconsin and Kentucky on TBS is the only college basketball game on cable to draw more than 18.7 million viewers. That game averaged 22.6 million. The 2022 men's final, which matched Kansas and North Carolina on TBS, averaged 18.1 million.

Clark and Iowa have the three biggest audiences for women's college basketball. The Hawkeyes' victory over UConn on Friday night averaged 14.2 million, and their 1 April victory over LSU in the Elite Eight, a rematch of last year's title game, drew 12.3 million.