South Carolina vs. Iowa national championship was biggest women's single betting event ever, per FanDuel
Sunday’s women’s national championship between South Carolina and Iowa lived up to the billing in more ways than one. It set yet another viewership record as the game’s popularity continues its impressive growth.
It was also a landmark day on the sports betting front.
Sunday’s game was the biggest women’s single event in history and saw a 205% increase in bet count from last season, FanDuel announced. It was also the No. 1 betting event of any sport on Sunday.
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Iowa jumped out to a lead in the first half before South Carolina kickstarted a rally and never looked back en route to the 87-75 victory over Caitlin Clark and the Hawkeyes. That meant the Gamecocks became the first program since UConn in 2016 to pull off an undefeated national championship season. And for Dawn Staley, it marked the third title of her career and South Carolina’s second in three years.
The game also took place in front of a record audience with an average of 18.7 million people tuning in, ESPN announced Monday. That made it the most-watched sporting event outside of the Olympics and football since 2019, with a peak audience of 24 million.
“With a record-setting audience of 18.7 million viewers, Sunday’s Iowa-South Carolina title game was a fitting finale to the most-viewed ever NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament,” ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro said in a statement. “These exceptional athletes, coaches and teams captured our attention in unprecedented ways and it’s incumbent on all of us to keep the incredible momentum going. I’m also very proud of our talented and committed employees for how they presented this historic event.”
It was the third straight record-setting round of the NCAA Tournament. Iowa’s Elite Eight victory over LSU became ESPN’s most-watched basketball game in history and the Hawkeyes’ Final Four win over Paige Bueckers and UConn trailed only the 2014 World Cup as the network’s most-watched non-football event.
Now off to the WNBA as the likely No. 1 overall pick to the Indiana Fever, Clark looked back on how many more people are tuning in to women’s basketball. She said that’s what she’ll take away from her final year at Iowa.
“When I think about women’s basketball going forward, obviously it’s just going to continue to grow, whether it’s at the WNBA level, whether it’s at the college level,” Clark said. “Everybody sees it. Everybody knows, everybody sees the viewership numbers. When you’re given an opportunity women’s sports just kind of thrives, and I think that’s been the coolest part for me on this journey.”