| National championship game | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Date | April 2, 2023 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Venue | American Airlines Center, Dallas, Texas | ||||||||||||||||||
| MVP | Angel Reese, LSU | ||||||||||||||||||
| Favorite | Iowa by 3 | ||||||||||||||||||
| Referees | Lisa Jones, Michol Murray, Pualani Spurlock-Welsh | ||||||||||||||||||
| Attendance | 19,482 | ||||||||||||||||||
| United States TV coverage | |||||||||||||||||||
| Network | ABC | ||||||||||||||||||
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| Nielsen Ratings | 1.97 (9.17 million)[1] | ||||||||||||||||||
The 2023 NCAA Division I women's basketball championship game was the final game of the 2023 NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament. It determined the national champion for the 2022–23 NCAA Division I women's basketball season and was contested by the Iowa Hawkeyes from the Big Ten Conference and the Louisiana State (LSU) Tigers from the Southeastern Conference. The game was played on April 2, 2023, at the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas. In the game, LSU defeated Iowa 102–85 to win their first national championship, setting a record for most points scored by a team in an NCAA women's basketball championship game. LSU's Angel Reese recorded a double-double and was voted the Most Outstanding Player (MOP) of the Final Four.
LSU's victory gave them their first women's basketball national championship and the fourth in the head coaching career of Kim Mulkey. Much media attention was directed to Angel Reese for a taunting gesture made to Iowa's Caitlin Clark near the end of the game. LSU held a championship parade in Baton Rouge and were invited to the White House.
The championship game was televised on ABC and the broadcast broke numerous records, including the highest viewership for a women's college basketball game at 9.9 million; the semifinal game between Iowa and top-ranked South Carolina was itself the third-highest-viewed women's college basketball game in ESPN's history. It was also the most-viewed college sporting event ever shown on the ESPN+ streaming service, and the year-over-year viewership from the 2022 championship game more than doubled.
- ^ Metcalf, Mitch (April 4, 2023). "ShowBuzzDaily's Sunday 4.2.2023 Top 150 Sunday Cable Originals & Network Finals". Showbuzz Daily. Archived from the original on April 4, 2023. Retrieved April 4, 2023.