President Biden hosted the defending national NCAA champions in men’s and women’s basketball at the White House Tuesday, welcoming Dawn Staley’s South Carolina women’s team and Dan Hurley’s UConn men’s team.
During the ceremony celebrating Staley’s Gamecocks, Biden joked about the women’s game surpassing the men’s game in TV ratings when he referenced the viewership numbers for last season’s NCAA finals.
“The championship game was the most-watched basketball game in the last five years, peaking at over 24 million viewers,” Biden said. “I’ll tell you what, I don’t think anybody’s watching men’s basketball anymore.”
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Biden also referred to Staley as a “Philly girl” because Staley is from Philadelphia, crediting that aspect of her identity for South Carolina’s third championship since 2017. Biden went on to say that he married a “Philly girl,” referring to first lady Jill Biden living her early childhood in Philadelphia.
Biden did not make any reference to the viewership numbers during the ceremony celebrating UConn.
But Biden’s jab at the men’s game during the South Carolina ceremony was met with laughter and applause in the East Room of the White House.
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President Biden and South Carolina Gamecocks head coach Dawn Staley arrive for a celebration of the 2023-2024 University of South Carolina Gamecocks women’s basketball NCAA championship team in the East Room at the White House Sept. 10, 2024, in Washington, D.C. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
This year’s women’s NCAA final was the most-watched in history and was the first to surpass a larger audience than the men’s final in history, averaging 18.7 million viewers on ABC and ESPN and peaking at 24 million viewers for South Carolina’s victory over Caitlin Clark and Iowa in March. The women’s tournament also set an all-time total attendance record of 436,055 fans, which topped the record set last year by 78,513.
It was the second most-watched non-Olympic women’s sporting event on U.S. television, trailing only the 2015 Women’s World Cup final between the United States and Japan, which averaged 25.4 million on Fox. That was also on a Sunday and took place in primetime on the East Coast.
The men’s championship averaged just 14.82 million viewers on TBS and TNT to watch UConn defend its title and defeat Purdue, 75-60.
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The Gamecocks ended their season undefeated and beat the Iowa Hawkeyes 87-75 for their third NCAA championship under head coach Dawn Staley. (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
The historic surge in the women’s final’s viewership outperforming the men’s coincided with Clark’s rise to superstardom in women’s basketball and other players like Angel Reese and Cameron Brink whose popularity crossed into the mainstream.
Jill Biden infamously suggested that Clark and Iowa visit the White House for their own visit after losing to Reese and LSU in the 2023 women’s final. The first lady apologized for the suggestion, but Reese said she was “hurt” by it and didn’t “accept” the apology during an appearance on the “The Paper Route Podcast” in April.
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