DePaul University’s women’s basketball team started out its season playing Iowa in front of a record-breaking crowd for the sport — 55,646 fans.
DePaul head coach Doug Bruno recalls the bus ride to the outdoor game at Kinnick Stadium in Iowa City and watching fans excitedly tailgating outside the football stadium before tipoff.
At that game in October, Bruno saw firsthand what he labeled the “catalyst” for the explosion in popularity of women’s basketball — the “Caitlin Clark effect.”
The Iowa superstar — and the national Player of the Year — was a main topic of interest this season, but other superb players, along with great games and intriguing storylines, put the sport in a brighter spotlight.
“I’m just so excited for the game of women’s basketball — that America is watching,” he said.
Millions across the country were expected to tune in Friday night for the NCAA women’s basketball Final Four in Cleveland, featuring North Carolina State vs. South Carolina, and UConn against Iowa. Chicago coaches say the interest is “thrilling” and a long time coming. Fans — including a loyal contingent for Iowa and Clark — were poised to pack the city’s sports bars, cheering on their favorite teams.
In part due to superstar athletes such as Clark and LSU’s Angel Reese, viewership for women’s college basketball has risen dramatically in recent years. Iowa’s 94-87 victory over LSU in the Elite Eight on Monday night averaged 12.3 million viewers on ESPN, according to Nielsen, making it one of the most-watched games in any sport other than NFL football over the past year.
Women’s Final Four tickets also sold on the resale market for an average of $2,300, twice as high compared to the men’s semifinals, according to a technology company that analyzes prices across multiple platforms.
Ashleen Bracey, head coach of women’s basketball at the University of Illinois at Chicago, said she watched the Iowa-LSU game on her couch with no one around so she could concentrate with no interruptions. The game was “everything that we anticipated,” she said, calling the ratings “amazing.”
“It’s everything that I think we’ve all been working for,” she said.
She expects high viewership for the rest of the tournament, especially for the Clark and Paige Bueckers matchup Friday.
“I don’t want to take away from women who have played in previous decades, because to me women’s basketball has always been very fundamental, very skilled, very much a team sport, but what I do think has really elevated as of late would be the generational talent and the improved skill and the ability to shoot (three-pointers),” she said. “We’re really growing in our product.”
At UIC, attendance has increased about 200% in the past two years, Bracey said. With more media coverage and accessible games, Bracey said she anticipates new women’s basketball fans showing up to WNBA games and other college games. The WNBA has already seen an increase in ticket sales after Clark announced her plans to enter the draft.
“Because it’s more available, because it’s more out there, it’s a great product,” she said. “People are seeing it, people are enjoying it.”
When Stephanie Swieca, a 2016 graduate, attended women’s basketball games as a student at the University of Iowa, she said the stands were almost empty. The difference in attendance is so stark now that she said her “heart just swells.”
The 30-year-old resident of the Dunning neighborhood said she planned to watch the Final Four game with her parents. She’s particularly enjoyed talking about Iowa in the family group chat throughout the season, she said.
“I’m so proud of this team, this group of girls, and this university. Not only are they great players, but their character is amazing,” she said. “If I had a daughter, these are the women I would want her to look up to.”
Swieca, who works as a communications coordinator for a school district in Mount Prospect, said adults aren’t the only ones interested in the games. Students ask her about Clark when they see the Iowa Hawkeye sticker on her phone, and fourth graders featured the Division I scoring leader on dioramas about Iowa, she said.
“The kids absolutely love her,” she said.
Many of the elementary and middle school-age girls that Eddie Hartnett coaches have requested jerseys with the number 22, and he said lots attended the game earlier this year when Iowa played Northwestern. Hartnett organizes basketball programs for about 100 girls in the Chicago area through Hot Shot Sports and the New Trier Girls Feeder Basketball program.
Throughout March Madness, he’s heard the girls talking about the games and Clark’s best plays. He said he wouldn’t be surprised if more girls start signing up for basketball leagues.
“It’s awesome,” he said. “Caitlin’s kind of this generation’s Michael Jordan in a sense where she is inspiring the youth. They all want to be like her, and it’s amazing that we have this player that’s inspiring girls.”
Interest in women’s sports in general has grown at a “meteoric pace,” Nielsen’s data showed. The 2023 NCAA championship for women’s volleyball also saw attendance at matches and television ratings skyrocket.
The crowds have also been a boon to business owners, according to Heather Roberts, co-owner of Whiskey Girl Tavern in Edgewater. When the bar opened in 2022, Roberts and her wife, both former athletes, prioritized showing women’s sports on their TV screens. Roberts said it was difficult finding places to watch the sports they enjoyed, so they decided to create a space for it.
She said they’ve shown nearly every March Madness game on at least one TV. But the Iowa games have been the most popular “by a longshot,” she said, adding that she was expecting a big turnout Friday night.
“This year, people have been following these players and these athletes and these teams,” she said. “There’s people that are obviously huge fans. … Then there’s people looking for something fun to do because of the camaraderie.”
Roberts said she hopes the high ratings are a push for future games to be played at better times and on easily accessible channels. It’s confusing and sometimes expensive when games are on different networks and streaming platforms, and she said unusual playing times can make it hard to draw a crowd.
“If they can drive better consistency in how you access the content and when, it will drive the fan base even more, because people can plan around it like they do with Sunday,” she said.
When Karli Bell heard that more than 12 million people watched the Elite Eight game, the Chicago Sky reporter and Chicago Cubs digital producer for the Marquee Sports Network said she cried.
Many players laid the foundation for women’s basketball popularity, including ones Chicago-area fans might know well, such as Candace Parker and Allie Quigley, but she said it now feels like the sport is finally getting the notoriety it deserves. Moving forward, she said putting games on channels people can easily find and learning more about the players’ stories will help increase interest.
“We’re finally looking at the intelligence and the beauty of the sport of basketball being respected and the people who did that are women, and that brought me unbelievable joy,” she said.
