🏀 The Caitlin Clark effect

She shoots, she scores… Caitlin Clark and the Iowa squad lost the NCAA women’s-basketball championship to South Carolina on Sunday, but they took home the gold for ESPN. The US’s leading sports network said a record 14.2M people saw Iowa take down UConn on Friday. The women’s Final Four matchup was the most-watched bball game in ESPN’s 45-year history.

• The women’s Final Four game beat an ESPN viewership record set in 2018 during Game 7 of the NBA Eastern Conference finals between the Cleveland Cavs and Boston Celtics.

Come for the game… stay for the TikTok edits. Women’s sports are having a viral moment as younger gens tune in more than ever before. Just over half of American adults spent some time watching or following women’s sports in the past year. For years, women athletes’ pay and sponsorships have trailed men’s, and the games didn’t usually draw as much ad spend. But as viewership soars, media coverage of women’s sports has nearly tripled since 2019, and more $$ is pouring in: 

• ESPN owner Disney said it sold out of ad spots for this year’s women’s March Madness Final Four and championship rounds, doubling women’s-tournament revenue from last year.

• Paid out: In January, ESPN and the NCAA renewed their broadcast deal for another eight years, valuing the women’s tournament at $65M/yr — 10X more than the current deal.

Comac on the tarmac… The market for commercial aircraft is a duopoly dominated by American Boeing and European Airbus. But as Boeing’s blues cause delivery setbacks for airlines, aspiring rivals have more runway. Cue: this year a Chinese competitor made its international debut. Meet Comac (aka: the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China), a state-owned planemaker that China hopes will one day rival Boeing and Airbus with its C919.

• Jet set: In February the C919 flew outside Chinese territory for the first time in a flyby at the Singapore Airshow. FYI: it’s so far certified to fly passengers in mainland China only.

• The C919 had its first commercial flight last year for China Eastern Airlines, flying passengers from Shanghai to Beijing. The jet can carry up 192 passengers, about the same as Boeing’s 737 and Airbus’ A320. China Eastern Airlines has five C919s.

Boeing left a hole… and we’re not talkin’ about the sealed door that yeeted off a 737 mid-flight. Its woes have left a gap in the market, and airlines are struggling to get their hands on jets to meet booming travel demand. As Boeing faces growing FAA scrutiny and a DOJ criminal investigation, Airbus has widened its jet-delivering lead. There’s also more room for newbies like Comac to gain a foothold in the passenger-aircraft market, which has an extremely high barrier to entry (making commercial planes = v complicated).

• TL;DR: “The Chinese are exploiting the shortage of aircraft in the marketplace,” aviation analyst Shukor Yusof told Sherwood.

• Still: It’s widely believed in the industry that the overall quality of the C919 doesn’t hold up to comparable models from Airbus and Boeing (for one thing, Comac’s plane is much heavier — read: less efficient).