The rarest of beasts in women’s college hoops — uncertainty and novelty — helped the national championship game to a three-year high in the metered markets.
South Carolina-Mississippi State earned a 2.4 overnight rating in Sunday’s Women’s NCAA Tournament National Championship on ESPN, up 20% from UConn-Syracuse last year (2.0) and up a tick from UConn-Notre Dame in 2015 (2.3), both of which took place on Tuesday nights.
The Gamecocks’ win, which peaked at a 3.3 from 8-8:15 PM ET, delivered the highest overnight for the women’s title game since UConn-Notre Dame in a battle of unbeatens three years ago (3.1).
Other than the 2014 game, Sunday’s overnight topped each of the national title games during UConn’s run of four straight championships. Compared to the last title game that did not involve UConn, Baylor-Notre Dame in 2012, overnights fell 8% from a 2.6.
The 2.4 also marked a 41% increase over the UConn-Oregon State national semifinal in the same Sunday evening window last year.
Impressively, the game earned a higher overnight than the MLB Opening Night telecast that followed, which featured the defending champion Cubs playing their first game since winning the World Series (2.3). It also topped the two NBA games on ABC earlier in the day, Celtics-Knicks (1.5) and Jazz-Spurs (1.8), and NASCAR on Fox Sports 1 (2.1).
Greenville S.C. led all markets with a 9.3 rating. Despite the Huskies’ stunning upset Friday night, Hartford ranked second with a 7.0. Knoxville, Tenn. was third (6.1), Memphis fourth (5.9) and Louisville and Charlotte tied for fifth (5.3).
(Numbers from ESPN)
