ABC to air NCAA women’s basketball title game for 1st time

By DOUG FEINBERG
AP Basketball Writer

The NCAA women’s basketball title game will be broadcast on ABC this season for the first time. The championship game usually airs in prime time but will be played at 3 p.m. Eastern on April 2. ESPN said it would look at moving the game back to prime time in the future but currently has commitments to entertainment shows that night. Last season’s championship game, in which South Carolina beat UConn, was the most viewed women’s title game in nearly two decades, drawing 4.85 million viewers. The national semifinals averaged 2.7 million viewers, up 21% year over year, and was the most viewed semifinals in a decade. The full tournament averaged 634,000 viewers, up 16% from the previous year’s coverage.