CNN
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Caitlin Clark stood alone on the Iowa Hawkeyes' home floor, a moment transfixed by 15,000 fans and more than 3 million viewers watching on television.
She made the free throw. easily. And one more thing. The home crowd erupts.
Those routine scores earlier this month surpassed the all-time college basketball scoring records for both men and women and earned Clark a place in the sport's Hall of Fame.
As March Madness begins this week, Clark, 22, has had a season in the making, but her talent has sparked interest in the women's game.
NBA star Stephen Curry called his record-breaking performance “must-see TV” in an interview with CBS earlier this month.
Viewers apparently agree.
This year, women's college basketball had one of the best regular seasons in history, with an average of 476,000 viewers watching regular season games on ESPN platforms, a 37% increase in viewership.
Viewership for women's college basketball is up more than 60% across national networks and more than 48% for games aired by the networks, with an average viewership of more than men's basketball, according to Insight President Michael Mulvihill. It is said that there are many people. Fox Sports Analysis.
John Lewis, who has been tracking sports ratings since 2006 on his website Sports Media Watch, said Clark, a 6-foot senior known for both his shooting and passing skills, is definitely one of the best. He said he has pushed up the numbers. Lewis compared her to Curry and other superstars, including LeBron James and Michael Jordan.
“They're the type of players that people focus on and pay attention to in a different way than other players when they're playing,” he said.
Clark's final season stats, which helped him break Pete Maravich's record, also have similarities to Curry's performance last year with Davidson. Clark is averaging 31.9 points per game on 38 percent shooting from 3-point range, while Curry is averaging 28.6 points on 39 percent shooting from deep.
While Clark is captivating viewers, women's college basketball is undergoing a growth that cannot be explained solely by “Clarkonomics,” as basketball analyst Debbie Antonelli calls it.
Its rise in popularity coincides with an overall increase in the profile of women's sports.
This increase is due to improved television coverage, including featuring games in optimal time slots on major networks, and name, image, and likeness (NIL) platforms that have allowed young female athletes to attend college and high school. This is due to the use of. This is because athletes earn income from sponsorships and the like.
Iowa and Clark have played in six of the top 10 most-watched women's basketball games this season, all with more than 1 million viewers, according to Sports Media Watch data.
The most-watched game of the season surpassed any women's college basketball contest since 1999, when the UW-Tennessee rivalry averaged 3.88 million viewers.
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Melissa Isaacson, an assistant professor of sports journalism at Northwestern University, said “mainstream” fans have always known about programs like UConn and Tennessee, but recently more attention has been focused on newer stars. Notably, last year's championship, which averaged nearly 10 million viewers, introduced the country to Iowa's Clark and LSU's Angel Reese.
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The surge in women's college basketball is also due to increased investment in media coverage of women's sports, Lewis said.
For example, this season marks just the third year the NCAA has branded the women's tournament “March Madness.”
“A lot of it is, 'Let's broadcast these games in a place where people can actually watch them,'” Lewis said. “There are real things happening in the women's game that are unique, not just with Caitlin Clark, but in women's sports.”
And as of March 19, fans who visited TickPick to get tickets for the Final Four had purchased six times as many tickets for the women's final as for the men's, the seller said.
NIL empowers players and their sports
Women's college basketball players are one of the biggest players in the name, image, and visibility sponsorship market.
Women's college basketball players are one of the biggest players in the name, image, and visibility sponsorship market.
NIL is only in its third year, and while football players make the bulk of the money, women's basketball players also receive significant sponsorship.
Sponsorships in college women's basketball are projected to reach $60 million by the end of the NIL's third year, according to data from OpenDose, a platform that brokers brand deals between athletes and sponsors.
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Clark, Reese, and female stars such as Cameron Brink and Paige Bueckers are highly favored, but other players such as Reed Shepard, Rob Dillingham and Cody Williams are likely to be drafted in this year's NBA Draft. Some of the top men's college athletes are known to apparently not be doing so well.
Using Instagram followers as a barometer, Dillingham has the most followers among male players at 669,000, followed by Clark and Buccaneers both with over 1 million and Reese with 2.7 million.
“By enabling these transactions…[NIL] We are shining more light on their sport as individuals and agents,” said Sam Weber, Head of Communications at OpenDose.
There was even speculation that Clark would remain in college rather than enter the WNBA Draft in order to preserve his lucrative NIL contract. The UW Buccaneers, for example, opted to stay on for five years to qualify for the league's allowance of eligibility for players affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
One of the factors that led to speculation that Clark would stay in college was that the WNBA does not have the same platform as women's college basketball.
While Clark and Reese played in front of about 10 million viewers during last year's college championships, Game 4 of the WNBA Finals peaked at 1.3 million viewers and averaged 889,000 viewers. She averaged 728,000 viewers for the entire four-game series, according to data from Sports Media Watch.
Lewis said the WNBA has historically had fewer spectators than women's college basketball. Part of the reason is because it hasn't been around that long. By 1997, the league's first season, Isaacson said several college women's programs had already built strong fan bases.
But there is precedent for college stars bringing large crowds to the WNBA. Lewis said the 2004 opening game between five-time Olympic gold medalist, WNBA all-time leading scorer and three-time WNBA champion Diana Taurasi was the most-watched game on ESPN/ABC.
Three-time WNBA champion and two-time gold medalist Candice Parker's first game in 2008 also drew a large crowd, Lewis added.
Ticket prices for the Indiana Fever, the team eyeing Clark with the No. 1 pick in the WNBA draft, have more than doubled.
Clark's college career could culminate in a national title. But if that outcome remains elusive, she will have brought in a large number of newly interested viewers beyond her college game.
