NCAA women’s basketball title game to air on ABC for first time

The NCAA women’s basketball national championship will air on ABC for the first time in 2023, ESPN announced Tuesday.

The game, which will be played at American Airlines Center in Dallas, will air Sunday, April 2, at 3 p.m. ET on ABC. ESPN will broadcast the Final Four contests, set for 7 and 9:30 p.m. on Friday, March 31.

“Scheduling the Division I women’s basketball championship on ABC has been a goal for quite some time in our ongoing efforts to maximize the exposure of women’s sports in collaboration with the NCAA,” said Burke Magnus, ESPN’s president of programming and original content. “Women’s NCAA championships continue to generate strong audiences across the ABC/ESPN networks and this move represents yet another unique opportunity to showcase this marquee event and the student-athletes who are competing for a national championship.”

NCAA tournament games were first broadcast on ABC in 2021, with two first-round matchups and four Sweet 16 matchups carried on the network.

The move for the title game comes after the 2022 championship game, featuring South Carolina and UConn, drew 4.85 million viewers to ESPN in prime time, making it the most-viewed women’s title game in nearly 20 years.