What's Next For Women's Basketball After This Year's March Madness

1A

NPR

News

4.4 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 9 April 2024

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Millions of people watched the NCAA women's basketball tournament over the past few weeks. The last three rounds of the tournament sold out and set viewership records, especially games involving the Iowa Hawkeyes and their star point guard, Caitlin Clark.

On Sunday, Iowa faced off against the undefeated South Carolina Gamecocks in the most-watched basketball game on ESPN since 2019. South Carolina pulled ahead in the second half to win it all, 87-75.

We talk about how the women's March Madness tournament got so big this year and the role Clark and other star players, like Angel Reese of LSU, played in turning out an unprecedented audience.

What's next for women's basketball at the collegiate and professional levels after this year's burst of enthusiasm and viewership?

Want to support 1A? Give to your local public radio station and subscribe to this podcast. Have questions? Connect with us. Listen to 1A sponsor-free by signing up for 1A+ at plus.npr.org/the1a.

Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices

NPR Privacy Policy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	This message comes from NPR's sponsor, Organic Valley, the farmer-owned cooperative dedicated to providing ethically sourced food from small organic family farms.
0:09.5	Discover how you can support local organic farmers at o v. coop slash ethically sourced. You might have noticed there were a couple of big basketball games over the weekend
0:28.2	including this one. There's Clark, had it knocked away, taken by Johnson. Johnson on the steel,
0:35.6	shovels to kids who lays it in.
0:38.6	The undefeated South Carolina Gamecocks faced off against the Iowa Hawkeyes and their star player Caitlin
0:44.3	Clark during the Women's March Madness Championship game on Sunday.
0:47.8	What was coming off the bench?
0:50.1	Clark!
0:51.1	Oh by!
0:52.1	From the Future! Clark, oh by, from the future.
0:55.0	Bess that Johnson comes out to meet Clark, Clark of AIDS,
0:58.0	bounces, oh, Grady gets denied by Cardoso.
1:01.0	Here's Johnson, Johnson, the pull-off. No, rebound, snare. Cardoso!
1:08.0	Unstoppable! But Caitlin Clark's sharp shooting couldn't break past South Carolina's defense, especially from Guard Raven Johnson and Center Camilla Cardoso.
1:18.0	South Carolina beat Iowa 87 to 75, rounding out their undefeated season with a championship title.
1:25.0	Sunday's broadcast was huge.
1:28.0	18.7 million people tuned into watch with a peak audience during the game of 24 million.
1:33.7	On Monday, ESPN said it was their most watched sporting event since 2019, other than football
1:39.4	in the Olympics.
1:40.6	A number of games leading up to the women's final kept breaking
1:43.2	ESPN audience records. Tickets for games were selling on the secondary market for
1:47.0	over a thousand dollars and many cases were significantly more than tickets for the
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.