The Women’s 2024 March Madness Tournament will go down in sports history. It was the most attended March Madness tournament in history attracting a record 357,000 fans. If you wanted to get a ticket, good luck, it was harder to make it to this tournament than any Taylor Swift Concert – and it cost a lot more too. 

This was the most viewed Women’s March Madness tournament period, and most viewed basketball game period since 2019. The Championship between Iowa and North Carolina drew a peak viewership of 24 million combined on ESPN and ABC marking the first time ever a woman’s final drew more attendance than the men’s final. 

This Tournament was also a tournament that drew extensive network coverage. After inkling a record breaking 8-year, $920 million media rights deal ESPN was granted exclusive coverage of all rounds of Women’s March Madness. Women’s sports isn’t just attracting fans, it’s attracting dollars. 

But let’s look beyond the numbers for a moment. This was a tournament that broke barriers. We have come to a moment in sports history where being a sports fan doesn’t just mean men’s sports, it means sports in general – men’s and women’s.

Turn on any sports talk radio station or podcast, and they will be talking about women’s sports. Turn on The Pat McAfee show where Pat just interviewed Catlin Clark after she was drafted with the number one pick to the Indiana Fever. Women’s sports is finally getting the coverage it deserves. 

It was a tournament that had story lines and drama. Take the LSU vs. Iowa rematch game for instance – after LSU beat Iowa in the 2023 Championship there was a lot riding on the LSU Iowa Elite 8 game. 

The previous year before winning the 2023 March Madness Championship LSU’s Angle Reese hit the you can’t see me gesture, then pointed to her ring finger while looking at Caitlin Clark. After the game Reese stated “I don’t take disrespect lightly, and [Clark] disrespected Alexis.”

As much as Catlin Clark and Angle Reese try to deny it, the LSU vs Iowa Elite 8 game was a grudge match, and it showed in the viewership with a record 9.9 million viewers who tuned in. 

With every story there needs to be a star and for this tournament that was Catlin Clark. She broke just about every record that is breakable – men’s and women’s. She broke Kelsey Plum’s record to become the all-time women’s NCAA Division I scoring leader, she then passed Lynette Woodard for the major college scoring record, to top it all off she also passed LSU legend Pete Maravich for most career points in Division I history for both men and women. 

Women’s sport has come a long way and it is only going to continue to grow. Post-Championship loss Clark summed it up well, “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. Everybody sees it. Everybody knows. Everybody sees the viewership numbers.”