Caitlin Clark’s impact on women’s basketball has gained more significance, thanks to Christine Brennan. She highlighted how Clark’s influence from her college days holds up even when compared with the most-watched college football games of 2025.The 2024 NCAA women’s basketball championship between the Iowa Hawkeyes and South Carolina Gamecocks garnered 18.9 million viewers. The matchup shattered records and set a new benchmark for the sport.For context, the most-watched college football game of the year was Ohio State’s 27-9 win over Michigan on Nov. 29. Clark’s final college game still topped it, attracting nearly 500k more viewers.“College FB is huge. Look at these numbers. Then consider that Caitlin Clark drew 18.9M for her final NCAA game. No wonder she is the biggest thing to hit the WNBA, why shows constantly talk about her, why even a book could be written about all of it. 😉,” Brennan wrote on X.Brennan also pointed out that Clark’s game brought in massive numbers even though the scheduling was not ideal.“Viewership is in for the 2025 CFB conf. championship games. Big Ten: 18.33M. SEC: 16.9M. Indiana-OSU was in prime time. Clark played on a Sunday afternoon — and attracted 18.9M viewers. These numbers, this interest and this respect for WBB were unthinkable until she showed up,” she wrote in another post.In the championship game, Caitlin Clark erupted for 30 points along with eight rebounds and five assists. Despite her stat sheet stuffing production, the Hawkeyes suffered an 87-75 loss.Caitlin Clark gets outsearched by Fever teammateCaitlin Clark’s massive fandom is no surprise, considering her huge social media following and the viewership she pulls in every single game. She is widely seen as the most popular player in women’s basketball. However, according to Google’s search trends, she was overtaken this year by her own Indiana Fever teammate.Sophie Cunningham was the only woman to appear in the list of the top 10 most searched athletes in the United States in 2025, coming in at number seven.Cunningham talked about it on the latest episode of her “Show Me Something” podcast:"I really don't know how to feel about that. It's kind of cool, I guess, like you're the only female up there. That's fun. "But there's no real feelings towards it. People want to know more about me. I mean, yeah. But I'm sure last year [Clark] was probably No. 1, right? She blew up in college... this is just this year."Sophie Cunningham witnessed growth in her popularity this past WNBA season, with her Instagram followers shooting up to 1.3 million.