Caitlin Clark's final regular-season game with Iowa brings in 3.39 million viewers
Caitlin Clark's final regular-season game for Iowa was the marquee sports event of the weekend.
It averaged 3.39 million viewers, which was the largest audience for a women's regular-season game in 25 years, according to Sports Media Watch. And at its peak, 4.42 million viewers watched through the end of the game.
Going into senior day, Clark needed 18 points to surpass former LSU great Pete Maravich's record of 3,667 points for the most in Division I history.
In front of a full house at Carver-Hawkeye Arena, Clark finished with 35 points, nine assists and six rebounds and helped No. 6 Iowa defeat No. 2 Ohio State 93-83 on Saturday. The win also snapped the Buckeyes' 15-game winning streak and helped the Hawkeyes split the season series.
Iowa and Ohio State will be the top two teams in the upcoming Big Ten tournament in Minneapolis.
Clark finished the regular season with 3,685 points and her 32.3 points and 8.7 assists this season paced all Division I women's players.
“Honestly, if you would have told me that before my college career started, I would have laughed in your face and been like, 'No, you’re insane,'” Clark said of breaking the mark.
CONGRATS @CaitlinClark22 on becoming the All-Time leading scorer!! 🪣🪣🪣🪣🪣🪣🪣🪣🪣🪣🪣🪣🪣. 🙏🏾🫡👑
— LeBron James (@KingJames) March 3, 2024
The Hawkeyes-Buckeyes game was watched by more fans than the Boston Celtics' blowout of the Golden State Warriors on the same day. It had more viewership than the first Duke-UNC men's contest (3.2 million) this season, too.
In fact, only one college basketball game this season had a larger audience than Iowa's finale against Ohio State this weekend. Michigan State's men against Arizona on Thanksgiving had a viewership of 5.2 million, but much of that was aided because it came on immediately after an NFL game.
The NASCAR Cup Series at Las Vegas was the only sports event from this weekend to have more viewers (4.36 million) tune in.
Fans were simply invested in seeing the final regular-season chapter of Clark's prolific and record-breaking career in any way they could and that resulted in rarely seen figures for sports viewership.
