ESPN delivered two of the largest college basketball audiences this season for a high-profile ACC doubleheader.
Louisville/North Carolina scored a 1.4 final rating and 2.1 million viewers on ESPN Wednesday night, marking the eighth-largest college basketball audience of the season on any network. There was no comparable window last year.
The Tar Heels have played in three of the eight most-watched games this season, tied with Kentucky for the most of any team in the nation.
Earlier in the night, Duke/Syracuse had a 1.2 and 1.8 million, peaking at 2.9 million for the final minutes. That increased from the teams’ meeting last season, which took place on Martin Luther King Day (1.7M), but was no match for their two meetings in 2015 (2.3M and 2.2M) or 2014 (4.7M and 4.2M).
In other action, ESPN scored 954,000 viewers for Indiana/Iowa and 799,000 for South Carolina/Florida on Super Tuesday, down 27% and 23% respectively from last year’s doubleheader of Michigan State/Ohio State (1.2M) and Alabama/Kentucky (1.1M).
| TOP CBB GAMES, 2016-17 SEASON Through February 23 Ranked by viewership |
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|---|---|---|---|---|
| # | Game | Net | Rtg. | Vwrs. |
| 1 | Kentucky/UNC December 17 |
CBS | 2.2 | 3.62M |
| 2 | Kentucky/Kansas January 28 |
ESPN | 2.0 | 3.35M |
| 3 | UNC/Duke February 9 |
ESPN | 1.8 | 3.08M |
| 4 | Wisconsin/Purdue January 8 |
CBS | 1.9 | 2.97M |
| 5 | Kentucky/Louisville December 21 |
ESPN | 1.7 | 2.72M |
| 6 | MSU/Ohio State January 15 |
CBS | 1.5 | 2.363M |
| 7 | Kansas/Duke November 15 |
ESPN | 1.5 | 2.361M |
| 8 | Louisville/UNC February 22 |
ESPN | 1.4 | 2.13M |
| 9 | Duke/Louisville January 14 |
ESPN | 1.4 | 2.09M |
| 10 | Kentucky/MSU November 15 |
ESPN | 1.3 | 2.08M |
