BRISTOL, Conn. ? UCLA's championship win over South Carolina averaged 9.9 million viewers on ESPN and ABC, making it the third most-watched women's NCAA title game since the network began televising the tournament in 1996.

The audience figures were reported by The Associated Press, which said the game peaked at 10.7 million viewers and finished as the most-watched sports event of the previous week according to Nielsen.

Those figures followed the on-court result from Sunday, when AP's game report said UCLA routed South Carolina 79-51 for the first women's title in school history.

Score and matchup details carried by ESPN's championship page confirmed the scale of the result, which still held audience interest despite UCLA entering the fourth quarter with a commanding lead.

The numbers added another marker to a tournament that continued the recent surge in national attention around women's college basketball.