Two of the most polarizing programs in college sports helped the ACC Tournament final to its largest audience in nearly two decades.
Duke-Notre Dame scored 3.6 million viewers in Saturday’s ACC Tournament final on ESPN, up 28% from North Carolina-Virginia last year (2.8M), up 2% from Notre Dame-UNC in 2015 (3.5M), and the largest audience for the ACC title game since UNC-Duke in 1998.
The Blue Devils’ win had a 2.0 final rating, up 18% from last year (1.7) but down 9% from 2015 (2.2).
Beyond the 19-year ACC high, Saturday’s game delivered the largest Championship Week audience on the ESPN family of networks since the 2010 SEC Tournament final on ABC (4.1M) and the top such audience on ESPN or ESPN2 since the 2009 Big East title game (3.9M).
For the season, it ranks third in viewership behind Duke-UNC on ESPN the previous week (4.1M) and Kentucky-UNC on CBS in December (3.6M). Duke played in four of the seven most-watched games on any network.
Head-to-head, Duke-Notre Dame easily topped the competing Warriors-Spurs NBA game on ABC, which had a 1.5 final rating and 2.5 million viewers. That was the only notable competition.
Figures do not include streaming viewership on WatchESPN, which brought the total audience up to 3.7 million.
(Wknd. numbers via ShowBuzz Daily 3.16, ESPN)
