As Is Usually the Case, UNC/Duke Among Season’s Top Games

It has not been the best of years for Duke, but their rivalry against North Carolina remains one of college basketball’s biggest draws.

Thursday’s North Carolina/Duke college basketball game had a 1.8 final rating and 3.1 million viewers on ESPN, flat in ratings and up 8% from the rivals’ first meeting last season (1.8, 2.9M) but down 31% and 26% respectively from their first meeting in 2015 (4.2M), both of which took place on Wednesday nights.

Compared to Florida State/Syracuse on the comparable night last year, viewership unsurprisingly soared 290% from 789,000.

The Blue Devils’ win, which peaked with 4.1 million viewers from 9:45-10 PM ET, delivered the third-largest college basketball audience of the season on any network, behind Kentucky/North Carolina on CBS in December (3.6M) and Kentucky/Kansas on ESPN last month (3.3M). Head-to-head, it comfortably defeated the Cavaliers/Thunder NBA game on TNT (2.1M).

Figures do not include the 103,000 who streamed coverage on WatchESPN, a record for college basketball on the platform. With those numbers added to the mix, the game had 3.2 million viewers. Nor do figures include viewership for local market coverage in ACC markets.

Airing immediately afterward, Oregon/UCLA had a 1.1 and 1.7 million viewers — up 38% in ratings and 26% in viewership from Iowa/Indiana last year (0.8, 1.3M) and up 83% and 91% respectively from Michigan/Illinois in 2015 (0.6, 867K). With streaming included, it was ESPN’s most-watched Pac-12 conference game on record (dates back to 1992).

(Thu. numbers from ESPN Media Zone 2.10, with additional info from ShowBuzz Daily 2.10, Programming Insider 2.11)