Reports indicate that the women’s college basketball scene is struggling following the departure of Caitlin Clark to the NBA.
Viewers dropped a substantial amount in this year’s tournament, with last night’s Final Four matchups drawing in 3.9 million viewers, a 64% decrease from last year’s viewership numbers.
Marketing Expert Suggests This Isn’t A Concern
Speaking to Marketwatch, Victor Matheson, an economics professor at the College of the Holy Cross, suggested that fans are looking at this ratings decrease entirely wrong, suggesting that this year’s tournament was actually a success.
“The real key is not how they compare to 2024, but how they do compared to 2023,” Matheson told Marketwatch.
BREAKING***
The Women’s Final Four semi-finals only drew 3.9 million viewers, down 64% from last year’s massive average of about 10.8 million viewers and reversing two years of viewership growth. pic.twitter.com/RjZ07aaYNj
— THE DRIBBLE (@TheDibble_XLIV) April 5, 2025
According to Front Office Sports, this year’s women’s NCAA Tournament actually outperformed the 2023 tournament in every single stage aside from the Final Four, which saw a 14% decrease in average viewership from that year.
However, with UConn set to lock horns with South Carolina in this year’s final, the real metric to measure on will be against 2023’s final between Iowa and LSU, which brought in 9.9 million viewers.
Marketing Expert Explains Viewership Decrease
While most fans of women’s college basketball will understand why there was a decrease in viewership this year, thanks to the loss of Caitlin Clark, Matheson also went more in-depth on why losing Caitlin Clark isn’t a major concern.
“Caitlin Clark is a unique figure that has drawn excitement in a way that we have not seen from any other player,” Matheson said.
But she won’t be the last one.
KEEP READING: What Is the Most Expensive Women’s Final Four Ticket Ever Sold?
“Every league has turnover in stars. People wrote the obituary for the NBA when [Larry] Bird and [Magic] Johnson retired — and then Michael Jordan came along. And then Jordan retires, and here comes LeBron James and Steph Curry,” Matheson said.
With the NCAA also set to lose another one of their top prospects in Paige Bueckers to the WNBA this year, after she declared she’d be moving up, who will be the NCAA’s LeBron James and Steph Curry?
The most likely option will be USC’s JuJu Watkins. Despite suffering an ACL injury earlier in the tournament, the 19-year-old star has broken multiple Freshman records, setting the all-time national Freshman record, and also being one of the top scorers in the country.
Watkins is already a hugely popular figure as well, with over 1.1 million followers on social media. She is the fourth most popular in the NCAA women’s division already, with all signs pointing to her being the next big NCAA star.
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