**NCAA Women’s Basketball Ratings Drop Without Caitlin Clark**
The absence of Caitlin Clark has significantly impacted TV ratings for the NCAA women’s basketball tournament. This year’s Final Four experienced a notable decline in viewership, averaging just 3.9 million viewers for the matchups between UConn and UCLA, and South Carolina and Texas. This figure represents a staggering 64% drop from the previous year’s record of 10.8 million viewers, as reported by Front Office Sports.
Despite this decline, the 2024 Final Four still ranks as the second-most watched in history, surpassing the viewership of the 2023 tournament, which also featured Clark. Her remarkable popularity as a college athlete contributed to unprecedented awareness of women’s basketball, culminating in the women’s championship game between Iowa and South Carolina achieving higher ratings than the men’s championship for the first time.
Now playing in the WNBA, Clark’s influence continues to resonate. In her rookie season, she propelled the Indiana Fever to become the most-watched team in the league, with all 14 of the season’s most-viewed games featuring the Fever. Additionally, she set a new record for the most All-Star votes in WNBA history.
In early September, Clark’s Fever faced the Minnesota Lynx, attracting an audience of 1.26 million viewers, even while competing against an NFL game. Her first regular-season finale against the Washington Mystics drew a record crowd of 20,711 fans, marking the highest attendance for a WNBA regular-season game.
Clark’s playoff debut on September 22 against the Connecticut Sun garnered a WNBA record of 1.84 million viewers, despite coinciding with an NFL Sunday. She followed this with another record-breaking audience of 2.54 million for Game 2.
However, after Clark’s season concluded, the WNBA playoffs saw a significant drop in viewership. The opening game between the Aces and Liberty, a rematch of the previous year’s finals, attracted only 929,000 viewers, a 50% decrease compared to the Fever’s Game 1 against the Sun.
As the WNBA continues to navigate the post-Clark landscape, the league’s future viewership trends remain to be seen.
**FAQ**
*What impact did Caitlin Clark have on women’s basketball viewership?*
Caitlin Clark’s presence in college basketball significantly boosted viewership, leading to record ratings for women’s games and increasing overall awareness of the sport.
