evidence: Brent Magid, chief executive of the media research firm Magid, said a celebratory collective viewing experience may have been just what the public needed. [...] The wild popularity of Caitlin Clark, now with the WNBA, helped drive a record audience of 17 million viewers for the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship game in March. (Clark’s exclusion from the women’s U.S. Olympic basketball team became a national topic of discussion.)