NCAAW tournament have broken history, becoming the second most watch tournament

The NCAA Women's tournament had so many storylines, upsets, buzzer beaters, competitive coaching, insensitive remarks, and lastly a team that finally broke the barriers and won their first National Title in UCLA. You had all these ingredients that had fans on the edge of their seats.

On Wednesday, ESPN released the viewership of the women's tournament, and it was pretty successful. Here are the numbers!

The battle of the top seeds scored 9.9 million viewers, the third most-viewed women’s college basketball championship game on ESPN networks and up 15% from last year’s title matchup. The showdown peaked with 10.7 million viewers as UCLA took home its first NCAA title.

The ESPN Women’s Tournament Challenge set a new all-time record with more than 3.4 million completed brackets, up 5% over 2025.  All these means is women's basketball is growing and so is the product.