Women's title game gets Easter bounce as Bruin beatdown nears ten million

Key Points:

• The NCAA women’s basketball national championship between UCLA and South Carolina averaged a 3.9 rating and 9.88 million viewers across ABC, ESPN, and ESPNU, making it the third most-watched women’s tournament game in the Nielsen people meter era.
• Despite UCLA's blowout win, ratings declined 9% from last year’s final, though overall viewership increased 15%, likely boosted by the game airing on Easter Sunday and recent Nielsen methodological changes that expanded out-of-home viewing measurement.
• Easter Sunday has become a significant day for sports viewership, producing decade-high ratings for various major sporting events since Nielsen began tracking out-of-home viewing six years ago.
• The national semifinals on Friday saw even steeper gains without the Easter holiday, with South Carolina-UConn and UCLA-Texas games averaging 5.2 million viewers combined, marking the highest viewership for the event since ESPN began airing it in 1996.
• The large margin of UCLA’s victory and the relatively low-profile matchup likely limited viewership growth, suggesting the game could have drawn even higher ratings under more competitive circumstances.