The USA women’s basketball team started their gold medal campaign in the 2024 Olympics with a commanding 102-76 victory over Japan. A’ja Wilson led the way with 24 points and 13 rebounds, while Breanna Stewart added 22 points and eight rebounds.
Despite the presence of star players, the game drew a surprisingly low attendance of 13,040, the smallest of the six women’s basketball games played at the Olympics so far.
In comparison, the Serbia-Puerto Rico game also had less than 20,000 fans but still surpassed the USA-Japan match with an attendance of 15,324. Spain vs. China attracted the largest crowd with 27,021 spectators, followed by Nigeria vs. Australia with 24,023. Germany vs. Belgium and France vs. Canada each drew crowds of around 20,211.
Of course, there are several reasons why the USA’s battle with Japan didn’t generate much interest. As many have commented, it’s possible that fans simply knew the USA would dominate and didn’t bother watching.
There’s also the timing issue. Both the USA-Japan and Serbia-Puerto Rico games were scheduled at 9:00 p.m. local time, while the others were played earlier. Considering that both matches had the lowest attendance among all the games played, the time could have been a huge factor.
United States head coach Cheryl Reeve watches her team’s game against Serbia in first quarter at Sydney SuperDome. © Yukihito Taguchi-USA TODAY Sports
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Regardless of the attendance, Team USA is in Paris to win gold. Sure enough, they are off to a great start in that regard.
