Everybody watches women's sports, and that is especially true during the month of March. Earlier this week, ESPN released some early ratings numbers for the 2026 NCAA Women's Basketball Tournament, and the No. 1 seeded Gamecocks brought in massive numbers.
According to the network, Monday night's game between No. 1 South Carolina and No. 9 USC—which resulted in a 101-61 Gamecock victory—brought in 1.8 million viewers. It was the largest viewership number of the evening across all four games, including matchups featuring No.1 UConn, No. 2 Iowa and No. 6 Notre Dame.
The game had a peak viewership of two million households, and the entire second round of the tournament was the second most-watched on record:
The @MarchMadnessWBB 2nd Round was the 2nd most-watched on record, averaging 1.0M viewers 📈
— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) March 25, 2026
🏀 Overall, the #NCAAWBB tournament has amassed 3.3B total minutes - making it the 2nd most-consumed early rounds on record pic.twitter.com/Dtvr7Ki2oj
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That's an encouraging sign for the women's tournament, which will begin Sweet 16 action on Friday and Saturday. For the Gamecocks, next up is a rematch against the No. 4 Oklahoma Sooners. The Sooners handed South Carolina one of its three losses on the year during the regular season, so there will be no shortage of motivation for Dawn Staley's team.
For ESPN, it can thank the Gamecocks for bringing in some massive numbers for the second round. We'll see how the numbers compare once the women's tournament starts going head-to-head with the men's tournament, which begins Sweet 16 action on Thursday.