Caitlin Clark, Iowa's NCAA Tournament Win Over WVU Averages Record 4.9M Viewers

Caitlin Clark and the Iowa women's basketball team's 64-54 win over West Virginia drew an average of 4.90 million viewers, setting a record for the NCAA Division I women's tournament game prior to the Final Four, per Jon Lewis of Sports Media Watch.

The previous record was 3.23 million viewers, set just two days prior when Iowa beat Holy Cross 91-65.

The Iowa-WVU game ranks third in average viewership for any tournament game over the past 20 years. No. 1 is last year's national championship (9.92 million), which featured LSU beating Iowa 102-85. The second one is Iowa's 77-73 win over South Carolina in last year's Final Four (5.60 million).

Viewership for women's basketball has grown plenty outside Iowa, though, as Lewis noted.

"The year-over-year gains have been considerable," Lewis wrote in part.

"The USC-Kansas nightcap averaged 1.76 million, up 87% from UConn-Baylor in a similar window last year (943K), and even the 4 PM ET Tennessee-NC State game averaged 1.23 million — up 75% from Ohio State-North Carolina in the same window last year (704K). ESPN also averaged 827,000 for Notre Dame-Mississippi in a 2 PM ET window that it did not carry last year."

Lewis also wrote that both the UConn-Syracuse and LSU-Middle Tennessee second-round games cracked two million viewers on average apiece.

As for the Hawkeyes, they're back at it Saturday when they play No. 5 seed Colorado in the Sweet 16 at 3:30 p.m. ET in Albany, New York. ABC will carry the game.