The Athletic has live coverage of Texas vs. South Carolina and UCLA vs. UConn in the 2025 Women’s Final Four.
Start times matter in sports when it comes to championship game viewership. The World Series, the NBA Finals, the Stanley Cup Final, the NCAA men’s basketball title game and college football national championship game, just to name a few mega-events, all commence in a prime time (on the East Coast) television window. The Super Bowl airs slightly earlier (roughly 6:30 p.m. ET) but concludes in the middle of prime time. There is a reason television programmers have historically done this, and it follows the same adage that Willie Sutton used when someone asked him why he robbed banks.
Because that’s where the viewers are.
Prior to arriving at The Athletic, I covered women’s college basketball for Sports Illustrated for more than a decade, including annually the women’s Final Four. The role gave me a window into the sport, and I could see the potential for an economic rocket shot as the players got more skilled and athletic, and programs got deeper. The past three years have shown everything points arrow up:
- In the BCC Era (Before Caitlin Clark), the 2022 title game between South Carolina and UConn drew 4.85 million viewers and peaked at 5.91 million viewers across ESPN, ESPN2 and ESPNU, the most viewers in nearly two decades.
- In 2023, the championship moved from ESPN networks to ABC. The title matchup between LSU and Clark’s Iowa more than doubled 2022, averaging 9.9 million viewers.
- Last year, the South Carolina-Iowa title game drew an astonishing 18.9 million viewers on ABC and peaked at 24.1 million. It was the most-watched basketball game (men’s or women’s, college or pro) since 2019.
The last two title games tipped off at 3 p.m. ET, and there is a strong argument to be made that even with their increasingly huge TV ratings, they all left even more audience attention on the table by airing at 3 p.m. ET, rather than primetime, when more people would watch.
During my years of writing about women’s basketball, I’ve watched ESPN make a bigger commitment to its coverage, from airing more high-profile regular-season games in better programming windows to enhancing its studio coverage with dedicated women’s basketball experts. The company made the decision in 2021 to air all 63 NCAA Tournament games nationally and placed both semifinal games on Big ESPN. Now, the title game airs on ABC. ESPN recognized it had a product with growing mass appeal and acted accordingly.
The deal that ESPN signed with the NCAA last year — an eight-year, $920 million media rights agreement that featured 40 championships bundled together (including women’s basketball) through 2032 — has contractual provisions that the title game will air on ABC. This is a great thing.
But the time has come. Rather than the usual 3 p.m. ET start time — as with this Sunday’s championship game — the title game should air on ABC in prime time starting next year, and ESPN executives and the NCAA should advocate hard for this.
The ABC schedule this Sunday includes new episodes of “America’s Funniest Home Videos” (7 p.m. ET), “American Idol” (8 p.m. ET) and “The $100,000 Pyramid” (10 p.m. ET, and celebrity contestants include Rob Riggle, Luenell, Fortune Feimster and Rachel Dratch). That’s not exactly NBC’s Thursday night lineup in the 1990s.
The Walt Disney Co. would benefit far more in the long run from exposing one of its significant sports properties to a bigger audience because women’s basketball is going to be played on ESPN/ABC far longer than “Idol” and “Pyramid” will run on that network. American Idol drew 4.66 million viewers last Sunday while Pyramid drew 2.29 million viewers. The women’s title game would obliterate this in prime time.
Everyone wants to protect their own fiefdom at Disney, and there are legitimate challenges. Idol may have built into its contract that it can’t be pre-empted. As far as non-NFL programming, Idol also generates more than $100,000 for a 30-second spot, which is robust in 2025 for a broadcast show. So you would need a lot of executives from multiple sister partners to make this happen, but this is good long-term corporate business for the parent company. Willow Bay, the dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, and her spouse Bob Iger, the CEO of the Walt Disney Company, know well the power of women’s sports. Last year, the couple purchased a controlling stake in Angel City FC of the National Women’s Soccer League. Iger can make this happen very easily if he wants it.
Last season’s national championship game drew more viewers for a basketball game than any since 2019. (Al Bello / Getty Images)
No doubt the afternoon window has produced great viewership for the title game over the last two years, and a 3 p.m. (ET) Sunday tip has benefits, given it is an accessible time for younger fans. (The prosecution has no objection here, your honor.) But prime time on ABC on Sunday or even Tuesday will do better.
ESPN did not make a programming executive available upon an inquiry on this topic, most likely because it is trying to be a good corporate partners. But last year when I asked this of Nick Dawson, ESPN senior vice president of programming and acquisitions, he said:
“The conversations have happened with regard to the time slot of the championship game as well as network considerations for the national semifinals. It’s an eight-year deal, so where we start may not be where we finish. As of right now, our intention is to continue with what we did — the championship game on ABC in that kind of late afternoon Sunday slot, which from a potential viewership perspective our research team has proven to us that there’s not much difference in terms of potential upside between that window and in a prime-time window.”
Though the decision would have to happen at levels above her, I asked Meg Arnonwitz, an ESPN senior vice president of production and the point person for the women’s tournament, what she thought of the idea. “What I would certainly be in support of having conversations about how we continue to put this sport in the best light possible for it to grow and give it the exposure it deserves,” she said. “We should never shy away from having those conversations.”
Added Rebecca Lobo, the lead analyst of the women’s tournament: “Moving the championship game from ESPN to ABC in 2023 proved to be a brilliant decision that took advantage of the newfound popularity of women’s college basketball. I’m curious how ratings would be impacted if the game was moved to prime time. But I also trust the leadership at ESPN to know if and when the timing is right for that.”
The women’s college game is in a great place. The Elite Eight round averaged 2.9 million viewers, the second most-watched Elite Eight on record and up 34 percent from 2023. ESPN experienced a massive windfall with the nexus of Clark and a move of the title game to ABC. A prime time final is the next step. When you have momentum, ride it.
(Top photo: Al Bello / Getty Images)
