For the first time in NCAA history, the women's basketball final garnered more views than the men's championship game, per data from Nielsen.

The big picture: The breakthrough numbers come as Iowa guard Caitlin Clark is driving unprecedented momentum around women's sports, Axios' Sara Fischer and Noah Bressner report.

By the numbers: The women's championship gathered nearly 18.9 million views, compared to 14.8 million for the men's final, according to Nielsen.

• That's a sharp increase from last year, when the 2023 women's championship drew 9.9 million viewers, compared to nearly 14.7 million views that same year for the men's final.

Zoom out: Clark is hailed as one of the greatest college hoops players of all time and became the Division 1 all-time leading scorer across both men's and women's basketball.

Go deeper: South Carolina-Iowa ratings cement women's sports surge