Iowa women's basketball star Caitlin Clark not only broke a long-standing NCAA Division I scoring record but has also captured a massive audience, setting new viewership benchmarks in the process.

The Sunday showdown against Ohio State, which saw Clark surpass Pete Maravich's legendary total of 3,617 points, drew an impressive 3.4 million viewers on Fox—setting the stage as one of the most-watched women's college basketball games in recent history.

The number of viewers was higher than both TNT NBA Opening Night games this season, and higher than Victor Wembanyama's NBA debut on ESPN, per Austin Karp of the Sports Business Journal.

In terms of viewership across all college basketball games this season, this game stands as the second most-watched, trailing only the Michigan State-Arizona Thanksgiving game that benefited from a direct NFL lead-in (5.18M), even surpassing the initial Duke-North Carolina matchup (3.20M). When considering the NBA as well, it places sixth for the season, as reported by Sports Media Watch.

Clark's performance against Ohio State, where she entered the gaming needing just 18 points to break the record, was not just a personal triumph but a moment of collective celebration in the sports community. She broke three scoring records in the span of just about three weeks: Kelsey Plum's NCAA Division 1 women's scoring record, Lynette Woodard's women's scoring record for major schools and Maravich's record.

The surge in game viewership is indicative of Caitlin Clark's immense impact on and off the court. Announcing her intent to enter the 2024 WNBA draft, Clark could draw record viewership numbers to the league. The most recent WNBA game, whether in the regular season or playoffs, to draw an audience as comparable to the Iowa-Ohio State game was during the opening weekend in 1997, when NBC pulled an average of 3.59 million viewers for the Charlotte-Phoenix game on the second day of the season.