The men’s championship game trailed the historic viewership totals on the women’s side, but it showed some slight growth from last year. … The Coyotes face a new obstacle in the long-running search for a new arena site. … There hasn’t been any new conversation between Jackson County, Mo., executive Frank White and the Chiefs and Royals. … Plus: There is a decidedly mixed set of developments surrounding the Paris Olympics as the event grows closer.
—Eric Fisher, Michael McCarthy, and David Rumsey
|
|
|
|
Caitlin Clark will leave college basketball without a national championship, but she achieved something nearly as historic: Due to her star power, the NCAA’s women’s college basketball championship grabbed a bigger TV audience than the men’s championship for the first time.
ABC/ESPN’s 18.9 million average viewers for Iowa vs. South Carolina on Sunday afternoon outpaced the 14.8 million viewers for TNT/TBS/truTV’s coverage of the UConn vs. Purdue men’s championship Monday night, according to Nielsen. Clark and Iowa came up short of South Carolina as Dawn Staley captured her third national championship in eight years. But she helped grow the NCAA women’s Final Four viewership by 114% to a record average of 13.8 million viewers. That made it the most-watched women’s Final Four ever. The women didn’t beat the men because the men’s audience slipped. In fact, this year’s men’s audience of 14.8 million was slightly higher than the 14.7 million from last year. Instead, it was due to huge growth
on the women’s side. Here’s why I think Clark’s Iowa and Dawn Staley’s South Carolina made sports TV history this week.
Clark was must-see TV: Every decade or so, a new sports star streaks across the landscape, someone who’s able to not only attract hard-core sports viewers but casual ones eager to witness what all the fuss is about. Think Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Danica Patrick, or Patrick Mahomes. They just play the game differently. They do things you’ve never seen before. Win or lose, they’re ratings magnets. That’s Clark.
Consider: ABC/ESPN’s 18.9 million average viewers for Iowa vs. South Carolina nearly doubled the record 9.9 million for last year’s Iowa vs. LSU championship game. In the space of one eye-opening week, Clark’s Iowa shattered its own TV records three times. Clark and Iowa’s revenge win over Reese and LSU in the Elite Eight on April 1 set a new all-time high for women’s college basketball, with 12.3 million average viewers. Only four days later, they pulled a record 14.2 million average for their Final Four win over Paige Bueckers and UConn. The record audience for Iowa’s championship loss to South Carolina on Sunday was the largest in women’s college basketball history, and the most-watched basketball game of any kind—women’s or men’s, college or pro—since 2019, according to Nielsen.
At every step of the way, Clark was the difference-maker. With 14.4 million average viewers, for example, Iowa’s Final Four victory over UConn doubled the audience that watched South Carolina’s Final Four win over NC State. This year’s championship viewership nearly quadrupled the average of 4.85 million who watched the UConn vs. South Carolina championship game only two years ago.
Time slots don’t matter: Before Sunday’s women’s championship game, some critics questioned why the NCAA was scheduling Iowa vs. South Carolina for Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m. ET rather than in prime time. But time slots don’t matter as much to appointment TV stars like Clark. Fans were going to tune in no matter what time she played. Besides, I thought the women’s championship had the better slot, anyway. The game aired on broadcast TV, on a Sunday afternoon, when it could capture all the parents and young kids crazy about Clark. The NFL has proven that with the right draw, the 4 p.m. Sunday time slot produces the highest viewership in all sports.
The men’s championship, on the other hand, was shown on TNT/TBS/truTV at a time when the cable TV bundle is shrinking. It had a ridiculously late tip time of 9:20 p.m. ET, too. That eliminated many kids who couldn’t stay up to watch the game, as well as adults who had to get up for work the next morning. Clark proved she had coattails, too. Following ESPN’s telecast of Iowa’s Final Four victory over UConn on Friday night, Scott Van Pelt’s midnight SportsCenter posted its most-watched episode ever with an average of 6.3 million viewers. Elle Duncan’s pregame show before Sunday’s championship game drew a massive 2.9 million viewers, tweeted ESPN audience executive Flora Kelly. Only one women’s college basketball game pulled more than 2.9 million just three years ago.
“The speed of growth for women’s college basketball is just mind-boggling,” she wrote.
An iconic figure: Clark isn’t just a player. She’s a symbol and an embodiment of women’s excellence, and of women surpassing men in areas they’ve traditionally considered theirs—something that, without her doing anything remotely divisive in any way, made something of a figure in the culture wars, and someone whose star transcended sports. It was easy to see people taking sides for and against Clark and what she represented over the past couple of weeks—mostly for—even as she elevated women’s basketball to new levels of recognition and popularity. In the end, both men’s and women’s college basketball had a March Madness to remember. As Fox Sports ratings guru Mike Mulvihill tweeted: “Don’t even need to see the men’s final number to confirm that this is easily the
most-watched year ever for men’s and women’s March Madness combined. Caps a year of record-high viewing of college sports.”
|
|
|
Matt Kartozian-USA TODAY Sports
|
A third municipality in the Phoenix area has put up obstacles in the Coyotes’ long-running effort to build a new arena, raising more doubts about whether the NHL team will ultimately survive in the Valley of the Sun.
Just days after the Coyotes announced plans to bid on a 110-acre parcel of land in north Phoenix and develop a $3 billion arena and mixed-use development there, the mayor of the neighboring city of Scottsdale has blasted those intentions as “fantasy.” The opposition adds to the team’s prior struggles in Glendale, where leaders terminated the team’s lease agreement for Gila River Arena, and in Tempe, where voters rejected an arena development referendum.
“The prospect of a rookie developer attempting to buy Arizona State Trust Land with absolutely no infrastructure … at the doorstep of Scottsdale is not feasible, or welcome,” Scottsdale mayor David Ortega wrote in an op-ed in the Arizona Digital Free Press.
Ortega went on to say the Coyotes presented the plan “without mention of market demand for a new entertainment venue disguised as a hockey arena, or congested highway access, or questionable arena zoning entitlement.”
The foremost issues at hand for Ortega: the lack of water and sewer lines at the site, as well as the project’s proximity to “the retail lions of Scottsdale.” The mayor added that “Scottsdale water assets are absolutely not available,” an unsurprising stance given the entire Phoenix area has grappled with an extended shortage due to climate change, and particularly shortfalls in the Colorado River that is a crucial local water source.
Relocation Rumblings
The Coyotes have not commented on Ortega’s statement, and the issues he raises are not necessarily insurmountable. But already, the team’s margin for error on the project is thin. If the Coyotes fail to win the land auction, team officials have said that relocation becomes a very real option.
Even before that, Salt Lake City had already made its intentions known of having an NHL franchise there, and the NHL Players’ Association has also pushed for a solution to the Coyotes’ arena problems that have stretched over many years.
|
|
|
|
|
“Not at this point. And they haven’t reached out to me.”
—Jackson County, Mo., executive Frank White when asked whether he’s spoken with Chiefs or Royals officials since Kansas City voters rejected a 40-year extension of a ⅜-cent sales tax last Wednesday. The measure, if approved, would have
generated more than $2 billion and allowed the Royals to build a new stadium in the Crossroads and the Chiefs to make renovations to Arrowhead Stadium. White, a former Royals star, also opposed it.
|
|
|
Eiffel Tower tourism ⬆ The most famous landmark in Paris will be adorned with a large-scale version of the Olympic rings this summer, bringing an even tighter tie between the upcoming event and the host city, and setting up power. Even before the Games, the Eiffel Tower has seen a surge in visitor numbers.
Ad sales ⬆ Building on existing confidence that NBCUniversal and corporate parent Comcast already had for the Olympics, network sales chief Dan Lovinger said $1.2 billion in advertising commitments have been secured, and the event is poised to set a new Olympics record once final bookings are tallied. More than $350 million of those commitments to date are from first-time Olympics advertisers.
Seine water quality ⬇ The Surfrider Foundation, a French waterway conservation nonprofit, said that recent testing of the river (above) found high levels of E. coli and bacteria, potentially indicative of fecal matter, in areas where open-water swimming competition is due to be held. Local officials, however, dismissed the findings and pointed to ongoing cleanup efforts.
Cybersecurity ⬇ French officials are in Washington, D.C., this week for meetings with U.S. cybersecurity experts, and are sounding the alarm about the potential for online hacking attempts this summer from political adversaries. Pro-Russian threats are of particular concern given that country’s ongoing ban from the Olympics due to its illegal annexing of Ukrainian territory.
|
|
- Like mother, like son: UConn’s Donovan Clingan pays tribute to his late mother by wearing No. 32. Stacey Porrini Clingan was a dominant center at Bristol Central High School in Connecticut, much like Donovan, and later led Maine to three NCAA tournaments. Donovan has followed in her footsteps, playing in two NCAA tourneys himself and winning back-to-back national titles.
- Speaking of the men’s title game: The official attendance for Monday night’s Purdue-UConn game in Phoenix was 74,423, making it the third-largest crowd in championship game history.
- New look for the Tigers coming: Auburn will transition from an 18-year partnership with Under Armour to a new 10-year deal with Nike, effective July 2025.
|
|
 | Cities are increasing police presence after social media posts. |
 | Loya had faced seven counts, including first-degree rape. |
 | The two sides have agreed to a month of exclusive talks. |
|
|
