A sold-out crowd packed the Brooklyn Academy of Music on Monday night as the WNBA held its 2024 draft. The heightened interest was a surprise to no one, since recent viewership numbers for NCAA Women’s Basketball games have been through the roof, and this year’s pool of draftees came straight out of many colleges responsible for the increased interest and attention.

South Carolina’s win over Iowa in the April 7th NCAA championship game averaged 18.9 million viewers, making it the most-viewed women’s college basketball game ever and the most-viewed college basketball game (men’s or women’s) on record for an ESPN platform. The game reached a peak viewership of 24 million viewers on ABC and ESPN during the final 15 minutes.

Stats from The Athletic websit put the South Carolina-Iowa viewership in perspective, with the game surpassing:

• Every World Series game since Game 7 in 2019;

• Every NBA Finals game since Game 5 in 2017;

• Every Daytona 500 since 2006;

• Every Masters final round since 2001;

• All but four college football games in 2023;

• All but one non-Olympic women’s sporting event on U.S. television — the 2015 Women’s World Cup Final between the U.S. and Japan.

The big question now? Will the NCAA and the WNBA be able to build upon this heightened interest and sustain similair viewership numbers next year? Stars like Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese, the number one and number seven pick respectively, will no doubt draw record crowds to future WNBA games, but only time will tell if fans will stick with the NCAA schedules as they did this season.