South Carolina's March Madness win over Iowa breaks viewership record again with 18.7million

South Carolina's NCAA championship win over Iowa shattered viewership records this past weekend, as 18.7million people tuned in to watch the Gamecocks' revenge victory against Caitlin Clark's Hawkeyes, making it ESPN's most-watched basketball game - college or pro, men's or women's - since 2019.

Sunday's high-profile matchup in Cleveland, Ohio, undoubtedly set new marks inside and outside women's college basketball, as it was also the most-watched sporting event outside of the Olympics or football since 2019. 

The game peaked at 24million viewers as the Gamecocks completed an undefeated season with an 87-75 win over Clark and her teammates. 

'18.7 MILLION' Clark shared on X along with a fire emoji on Monday despite being on the losing end of back-to-back NCAA championship games.

It was the third straight Iowa game to break TV ratings records for women's college hoops. 

Iowa' loss to South Carolina in the NCAA title game topped every NBA Finals game since Game 5 of the 2017 NBA Finals between the Golden State Warriors and  Cleveland Cavaliers

Caitlin Clark reacted to Monday's news by tweeting the viewership amount with a fire emoji

South Carolina's revenge win against Clark and co. was also the third straight Iowa game to break TV ratings records for women's college hoops

The Hawkeyes' Elite Eight win over LSU was a rematch of last year's title game that drew a then-record 9.9million viewers. 

The rematch netted 12.3million viewers. 

Then came the Final Four meeting with blueblood UCoon on Friday night. That game upped the record to 14.2million. 

Iowa's Elite Eight win against LSU - a rematch of last year's championship game - drew a then-record 9.9M viewers, earlier in the NCAA tournament

Viewership for South Carolina-Iowa also topped every World Series game since Game 7 of the 2019 World Series; every NBA Finals game since Game 5 of the 2017 NBA Finals; every Dayton 500 since 2006 and every Masters final round viewership since 2001. 

This year's NCAA title game also had more people watching it than all but four college football games in 2023. 

Clark now moves to the WNBA - the league's draft is April 15 - and her exit will ask loads of questions on whether these new NCAA Tournament viewership records will keep up in next year's edition of March Madness. 

That partially depends on potential increased investment from ESPN and Fox Sports and whether both networks will continue to do what they did this year and in 2023 by programming women's basketball on Big Fox.